IC 423 Hijacker Gajinder Singh Khalsa
Dal Khalsa founder and patron Gajinder Singh Khalsa reportedly died of a heart attack at a hospital in Pakistan on July 5, 2024. He was 74. Dal Khalsa is yet to confirm his death he is survived by his daughter.
Khalsa was one of the five men from the once banned “Dal Khalsa” who hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC-423, which took off from Delhi’s Palam Airport. For Srinagar on September 29, 1981. They hijacked the Indian Airlines flight with 111 passengers and 6 crew members on board and forced the plane to land in Lahore to seek the release of several Khalistani extremists, including Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
They were arrested and underwent imprisonment from September 30, 1981 to October 31, 1994 as part of their life sentence by a court there. The Hijackers had sought the release of several Khalistani extremists including Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. After the hijacking of IC-423, the Government of India banned the Dal Khalsa in 1982 and the outfit was allowed to restart overground activity a decade later.
The Central government also put Gajinder Singh Khalsa’s name on the list of the 20 most wanted in January 2002 and sought his extradition there. After being released in 1994, two of the hijackers returned to India and the other three decided to stay back. In 2020, the Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs decided to confer the title of Sikh Warrior in Exile on Gajinder Singh Khalsa.
After the announcement, the Dal Khalsa spokesperson Kanwarpal Singh said that they had serious objections to India’s viewpoint on Gajinder Singh. “The decision of government to label him a terrorist is unjustified. He is not a killer or criminal. He is a man of politics and wanted to change the system. He has never shown any prejudice or discrimination towards any religion or culture. He struggled for Sikh rights but never took up arms to accomplish the mission.
The charges of sedition put against him, do not fall under the category of terrorism. Sedition is not a terrorist act and he has spent 13 years and four months in Lahore jail for his act,” he said. Adding further, Kanwarpal Singh said the Dal Khalsa activists did hijack the aircraft to Lahore, but none of them carried firearms and did not harm any passenger.
The spokesman said Gajinder Singh went to Germany in July 1996, but was deported to Pakistan following pressure from India. A petition was filed by the party activists in the administrative court of Germany protesting the deportation of Gajinder Singh back to Pakistan. Since then, he is in exile, he added.
Apart from Gajinder Singh, the four others who hijacked the Indian Airlines plane included Tajinderpal Singh, Satnam Singh, Jasbir Singh Cheema, and Karan Singh. Tajinderpal Singh returned to India in December 1997 and Satnam in 1999. A Delhi court in August 2018, had acquitted Tajinderpal and Satnam of charges of waging war against the country saying that they were being granted “benefit of doubt” as the prosecution failed to prove the charges beyond “reasonable doubt.”
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