The Central Bureau of Investigation denies it but Union home ministry sources said two officers have been to Kandahar to investigate the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC 814 in December 1999.

The plane, on its way to New Delhi from Kathmandu, was hijacked and was flown to Kandahar. The passengers and the crew were held captive for close to a week before being released in exchange for three terrorists, including Maulana Masood Azhar, who now heads the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad.

"We have requested the Afghan government to investigate the matter but so far have not heard from them. So far, no CBI team has gone to Kandahar in this connection," CBI spokesman G Mohanty told rediff.com in Delhi on Tuesday.

Sources in the home ministry, however, said two officers have indeed been sent to Kandahar, but their mission was being played down for security reasons.

"After the fall of the Taliban government, American agents seized a lot of documents, including the boarding passes of the hijackers. After this discovery, the CBI had sought permission to go to Kandahar to investigate what happened after the hijacked plane landed there," said a top home ministry official.

American agencies had also seized the taped conversation between the control tower at Kandahar airport and the hijackers. The FBI had shared the contents with the CBI.

Several terrorists were detained in various jails in Kandahar after the US overthrew the Taliban government in December 2001 in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

Investigations in Kandahar are likely to uncover the links between the terrorists, the Taliban and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence.
 The CBI had arrested a number of persons in connection with the case and the trial is on in a Patiala court in Punjab.

The US is also investigating the case as one of the passengers on board the hijacked plane was an American woman.