Bail to two in 1981 AI plane hijacking case

A Delhi court today granted bail to two persons accused of hijacking an Air India plane from New Delhi to Srinagar and forcing it to land in Pakistan in 1981.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Jyoti Kler granted Satnam Singh and Tejinder Pal Singh the relief on a personal bond of Rs 2 lakh and two sureties of the same amount.
The court also directed the investigating officer of the case to appear before it on July 31, the next date of hearing.
The two accused were deported in 2000 from Pakistan after serving a life term for hijacking an Air India plane to the neighbouring country in 1981.

The Delhi High Court had in September 2014 refused to stay a lower court decision ordering fresh trial against the two alleged Sikh militants.
The duo had approached the high court, seeking that the order to try them afresh after registering an FIR be set aside.

Tejinder Singh, a Jalandhar resident, and Satnam Singh, who belongs to Chandigarh, had also sought quashing of the trial court's order to declare them proclaimed offenders in the case.
In September 1981 the accused had hijacked an Air India plane from New Delhi to Srinagar en route Amritsar and forced it to land in Pakistan, where they were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.

After their deportation to India in 2000, they had sought their discharge from the case registered here.