The events of February 1971 and the postures which the people's party began to strike made it clear that they were not working towards resumption of dialogue but towards precipitating a crisis and ultimately, confrontation.
On 2nd February 1971, an interesting event took place. An Indian airlines Plane was hijacked to Lahore by two young men describing themselves as Kashmiri Freedom fighters. The reaction of Bhutto and his people's party to this event was to lionize these young men. Bhutto himself garlanded them and they were taken in a triumphal procession through the streets of Lahore. This also provides an occasion for a diatribe by Bhutto against India.
I clearly remember the reaction of Sheikh Mujib and the Awami League. The blowing up of the hijacked plane, even more than the hijacking itself, gave rise to suspicion. The suspicion was that clements interested in averting transfer of power to elected representatives were bent on creating abnormal conditions. A statement was issued by Sheikh Mujib deploring the blowing up of the plane stating:
Prompt and effective step by the authorities could have been taken to prevent its occurrence. It should have been realized that at this critical juncture in the nation's life, the creation of abnormal conditions can only serve the interest of sabotcurs. I would urge the Government to hold an enquiry into this matter and to take effective measures to prevent interested quarters from exploiting the situation for their nefarious ends.
For some weeks the two young “commandos” continued to be lionized. The people's party immediately mounted a campaign directed against Awami League for deploring the hijacking and the blowing up of the plane. The Awami League's office in Lahore was attacked. Indeed, it began to be said that the divergent reactions to the hijacking of the Awami League and the people's party showed up how difficult it might be to evolve a common foreign policy-this in context of the fact that forcign affairs under the six-point scheme was to be a Federal subject.
Reacting to the pressure that Awami league should make no specific comments on the hijacking, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman pointed out that this could hardly be expected when the government had not taken any steps to brief him on precisely what had happened, even though he was admittedly the leader of the majority party. An interesting foot note is provided by the fact that Alive, the additional foreign secretary appeared in Dacca on 1 march, 1971 and sought and appointment on 2 March 1971 to brief Sheikh Mujib about the hijacking incident. Since 2 March marked the beginning of 'Non cooperation Movement, Alive found that his mission had been overtaken by events.
An important consequence of the hijacking that India suspended all over flights over Indian Territory by Pakistani aircraft. This meant that the only route by which aircraft could come from the west to the west was all the way around over the southern tip of the Indian peninsula over Ceylon, thus almost trebling the distance and the travelling time. This also meant making a military solution in the cast very much more expensive and difficult, should the junta be disposed to opt for this.
The abortive talks with Bhutto and the delay in convening of the session of the national assembly had begun to feed the fear that Yahya and military junta might be seeking some pretext for not calling the national Assembly.
