By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 27, 1999; Page A01

CAIRO, Dec. 26—As 161 passengers and crew aboard a hijacked Indian Airlines jet sat through a third day under a death threat from their captors, the governments of India and Pakistan began trading accusations over who was responsible for the plane's seizure by five armed men.

India asserted that the hijackers had arrived in Nepal aboard a Pakistani airliner and, with weapons in hand, were able to quickly transfer onto the targeted Airbus A300 without extra security checks.

Pakistan's foreign minister responded by accusing India of staging the hijacking to malign Pakistan's new military government.

The plane remains on the ground in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, where it has been since early Saturday morning, controlled by a group demanding the release of a Pakistani jailed for his work among militants in the contested Indian territory of Kashmir.

A U.N. official, Erik de Mul, visited the passengers to verify that they are being fed and to check on their condition. The hijackers released one additional passenger, a diabetic.

However, the hijackers did not comply with pleas to release the widow of a passenger who was stabbed to death on Friday when the plane was seized en route to New Delhi from the Nepalese capital of Katmandu. Under the hijackers' control, the plane wandered through stops in India, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates before stopping in Kandahar. India had requested that the widow be allowed to attend her husband's funeral today.

The air in the plane "is very bad. . . . It smells like people have been sick," said Mohammed Khiber, a civil aviation authority for Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, who have delivered food to passengers. The plane's engine's were running and the shades remained drawn, said Afghan officials.

The man's stabbing is the only confirmed death, though the hijackers have threatened to kill all on board, and themselves, if the anti-Indian militant Maulana Masood Azhar is not released from a Kashmiri jail, along with others who have been fighting to make Kashmir part of Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir, which like Pakistan is mostly Muslim. Most Indians are Hindus.

After three days of tension, and amid mounting criticism in India over the government's handling of the hijacking, regional troubles surfaced. Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh said Pakistan had tried over the years to secure the release of Azhar, suggesting sympathy with the hijackers' cause.

Though India has not yet sent officials to Afghanistan, Singh said the government is in communication with the hijackers "directly via the air traffic control and other authorities in Afghanistan."

The Indian cabinet, caught between the demands of passengers' relatives to release Azhar and security officials' arguments that any concession to the hijackers would encourage terrorism, held emergency meetings. Singh said all possibilities are under discussion.

Pakistan denied that four of the hijackers had boarded the jet after arriving in Katmandu on a Pakistani airliner. Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar said in Islamabad that Indian officials may have staged the incident "in pursuit of their aim of maligning Pakistan internationally."

Afghan politics is also complicating the crisis. The Taliban, who practice a strict form of Islam, are not recognized by most of the world as Afghanistan's legitimate government, and a member of an opposing faction, who still serves as Afghanistan's ambassador to India, charged that the Taliban have orchestrated the hijacking with Pakistan.

As the first apparent details were released on how the hijacking was carried out, a diplomatic standoff was developing over who would conduct any negotiations with the hijackers and whether the plane will be allowed to stay.

Apparently in deference to Indian demands, U.N. officials today refused to try to mediate an end to the crisis, a decision that angered Taliban leaders, who requested U.N. involvement and say they want the plane to leave Afghanistan.

U.N. officials expressed reluctance to become embroiled in a standoff that could complicate relations with India, which has long resisted any U.N. role in Kashmir. A direct appeal from New Delhi would be required to change their position. "An invitation from the Taliban is not enough," the senior U.N. official said. "Without an invitation from India we could not enter into negotiations."

While India approved of de Mul's humanitarian mission to Kandahar, it said it wants no further U.N. action.

Aviation authorities in Kandahar have said the plan has been refueled, but it remains unclear when it will leave or where it might go. Taliban officials acknowledged the plane is leaking oil and may have other mechanical problems, and have said they would not ask the plane to leave until all of the problems are addressed.

Correspondent Colum Lynch at the United Nations and special correspondent Debdeep Chakraborty in New Delhi contributed to this report.