{"id":301866,"date":"2018-08-27T11:54:17","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T11:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=301866"},"modified":"2018-08-27T11:54:17","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T11:54:17","slug":"delhi-court-acquits-two-accused-in-1981-indian-airlines-plane-hijacking-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/delhi-court-acquits-two-accused-in-1981-indian-airlines-plane-hijacking-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Delhi Court acquits two accused in 1981 Indian Airlines plane hijacking case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-299573 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/law-2-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"505\" height=\"379\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/06\/law-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/06\/law-2-80x60.jpg 80w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/06\/law-2-265x198.jpg 265w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/06\/law-2.jpg 534w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 505px) 100vw, 505px\" \/>A Delhi sessions court on August 27 acquitted Satnam Singh and Tajinder Pal Singh facing trial for their alleged involvement in an Indian Airlines plane hijacking on September 29, 1981.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Patiala House court acquitted both the accused of hijacking Delhi-Srinagar bound plane Boeing 737 with 111 passengers and six crew members on board.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Satnam Singh following the verdict said, \u201cThe Sikh victims of 1984 riots are yet to get justice, but in our case, we have got justice from courts.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Both the accused had already served the life term in Pakistan in connection with the crime. Satnam Singh, who was 30 at the time of the offense, has turned 67 while Tejinder Pal Singh is a year younger.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Both accused had sought acquittal from the court during the trial on the ground of double jeopardy for the alleged crime. It would violate their fundamental right under Article 20(2) of the Constitution and Section 300 of the Criminal Procedure Code, they had submitted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">After serving their sentence in Pakistan, both had moved to Canada and the US respectively and were deported to India in 1998 and 1999 in connection with the incident.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The plane was hijacked by at least five Sikh hijackers belonging to Dal Khalsa. They had demanded the release of the Sikh preacher and head of Damdami Taksal Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who was arrested on September 20, 1981, in a murder case.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Delhi sessions court on August 27 acquitted Satnam Singh and Tajinder Pal Singh facing trial for their alleged involvement in an Indian Airlines plane hijacking on September 29, 1981.\u00a0 The Patiala House court acquitted both the accused of hijacking Delhi-Srinagar bound plane Boeing 737 with 111 passengers and six crew members on board. Satnam [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":299573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[4412,4413,2052],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301867,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301866\/revisions\/301867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/299573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}