The Central Bureau of Investigation would soon send a second team to Afghanistan to question Taliban commander General Usmani in connection with the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC 814 in 1999.

The decision came as former Taliban commander after former foreign minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil had told the agency that Gen Usmani would be able to throw more light on the entire hijacking episode, CBI sources said in Delhi. It is trying to get Muttawakil to Delhi for detailed questioning, as he was reportedly unwilling to cooperate with the investigation.

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Some more senior Taliban leaders would be questioned and a request has been made in this connection to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, which had captured these persons after the US led an attack against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

According to intelligence reports, Gen Usmani was the liaison officer between the ISI (Pakistan's intelligence agency) and the Taliban.

The CBI has also been trying to lay its hands on the voice recorder of the Air Traffic Control of Kandahar as the agency suspects that all the information and directions at the time of the hijacking had been coming from Pakistan.

The CBI has sought information from the FBI about some of the militant leaders of Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Mujahideen who were present at the Kandahar airport after the plane landed there on December 25, 1999.

Maulana Masood Azhar, one of the three militants released in exchange of the hijacked passengers, was the founder member of the HuM. The militant outfit had made several attempts to get him released from a Jammu jail.