A decade before 9/11, plans to use aircraft for terror strikes were mooted by the ISI-backed Punjab terrorist group to target India, a former top intelligence official said.
A Babbar Khalsa terrorist had admitted that he was asked by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence to join a flying club and crash his plane on the Bombay High oil platform during a solo flight, former additional secretary in the Research and Analyses Wing, B Raman said.
"What was new about the 9/11 strikes was the dramatic manner in which this modus operandi was executed for carrying out well-orchestrated attacks on the nerve centres of US power," Raman said.
In his latest book 'Terrorism: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow', Raman warns that mushrooming of airlines, rapid rise in the number of private planes owned by corporates and high-end
individuals, coupled with a massive shortage of pilots in India, has made the task of preventing terrorists from using aircraft to carry out attacks "more complex".
Recommending a comprehensive security vetting procedure for checking the background of foreign pilots before recruitment and monitoring their contacts and activities after recruitment, Raman said "this trans-national migration of pilots might be exploited by terrorist organisations to have their members qualified as pilots infiltrated into airline companies."
In the book published by Lancers, Raman said a Babbar Khalsa terrorist trained by the ISI, was arrested by the Indian authorities in the early 1990s. During interrogation, he said the ISI had asked him to join the Mumbai flying club and crash his plane on the Bombay High oil platform on a solo flight.
