AMRITSAR, India -- Elite Indian commandos early Sunday stormed a jetliner hijacked on a dc estic flight and shot dead a radical Islamic gunman holding 140 people hostage, officials said.

The hijacker earlier had fired a shot and threatened to kill passengers one by one unless the jetliner was refueled and allowed to leave for the Afghan capital, Kabul. He had also threatened to blow up the Boeing 737 with a hand grenade.


The commandos, known as 'black cats' because of their black uniform, stormed the plane under cover of darkness and took the lone hijacker by surprise.

Amritsar police chief Hardip Singh Dhillon said he distracted the hijacker as the commandos stormed the aircraft by engaging him in a radio conversation from the airport control tower.

'The militant was shot dead when he refused to throw his arms up,' an Indian interior ministry spokesman said.

None of the passengers were wounded in the commando raid.

The Boeing 737, with a six-member crew, landed in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar after authorities in the nearby Pakistani city of Lahore refused to let the plane land there.

The plane was hijacked early Saturday afternoon while on a flight from New Delhi to Srinagar, the summer capital of troubled Kashmir state. The hijack drama ended more than 11 hours later at about 1 a.m. Sunday local time.

The commando operation was approved late Saturday by the crisis committee of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao's Cabinet. About 350 National Security Guard commandos were rushed to Amritsar airport in six Soviet-built helicopters.


The hijacker claimed he was armed with two pistols and a hand grenade and was a leader of an underground Muslim group operating in Indian Kashmir. He described himself as a 'supreme commander' of Hizbul Mujahideen, a Pakistan-backed Islamic fundamentalist group.

The Hizbul Mujahideen denied any involvement in the hijacking.

The Indian interior ministry identified the hijacker as Mohammad Yusuf Shah, a fugitive believed to be the third-ranking leader of the Hizbul Mujahideen. The organization is one of two dozen guerrilla groups waging a hit-and-run campaign in support of their demand for Indian Kashmir's merger with Pakistan.

Shah was jailed under an anti-terrorist law in Kashmir but jumped bail last year, senior police official R.C. Pande said.

The commando raid was led by a brigade commander of the National Security Guard, which was set up in the mid-1980s to help contain growing terrorist attacks on Indian politicians and officials.

In Islamabad, a spokesman for the Pakistani Foreign Office said his government condemned the hijacking and had offered full cooperation to the Indian authorities.

The government warned all airports in Pakistan not to allow the hijacked plane to use Pakistan's airspace or land inside the country, the spokesman said.

K.P.S. Gill, police chief of India's Punjab state, earlier described the militant as a 'trained terrorist' who 'means business.'

Authorities had deployed sharpshooters around the plane as the hijacker's first deadline to refuel the plane and let it fly to Kabul passed after dusk without any incident.


Police chief Gill, carrying milk and water for the passengers, tried to enter the jetliner but the hijacker threatened to kill anyone trying to approach the plane. Officials said the pilot radioed to say the aircraft was running out of food and water.

This was the fourth hijacking of an Indian jetliner in about three months and the third in less than one month. The men involved in the earlier hijackings, however, were unarmed and surrendered after brief negotiations.

The hijacking was seen as a serious embarrassment to Rao's 22-month government, which only four days earlier ordered India's 25 states to tighten airport security.

The men involved in the earlier hijackings this year were unarmed and surrendered after brief negotiations.

This was the second time this year that a hijacked plane landed in Amritsar, 30 miles from the border with Pakistan. The other two planes hijacked recently were forced to land in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state.

The control of Kashmir, a strategic Himalayan region in south-central Asia, is divided among India, Pakistan and China, with 45 percent of the 88,894-square-mile territory under Indian rule. Kashmir also borders Afghanistan and Tadzhikistan.

A long simmering Muslim separatist movement in Indian Kashmir flared into an open rebellion in early 1990. Since then, more than 3,000 people have been killed, according to official accounts.

The Hizbul Mujahideen and several other Muslim fundamentalist groups are waging a guerrilla campaign in support of their demand for Indian Kashmir's merger with Pakistan. Other insurgent groups, however, seek the independence of all of Kashmir from Indian, Pakistani and Chinese rule.