For three years, even after the Taliban brutally tortured and killed New Delhi's good friend and then President of Afghanistan Najibullah in September 1996, New Delhi turned a blind eye to the continued operation of the Ariana flight. Meanwhile, it mouthed various platitudes of support to the Taliban's enemy, the Northern Alliance led by Burhanuddin Rabbani and commanded by Ahmed Shah Masood.

Having considered the degenerating Afghan situation from all sides in this time, as well as its own near-complete marginalisation as a player in the Afghan game, New Delhi finally ordered the Director-general of Civil Aviation (DGCA) last week to ``suspend'' the flight due to ``operational reasons.''

Interestingly, the flight has only been ``suspended'', not ``cancelled'' outright, theimplication being that New Delhi will ``revoke'' that order when it puts its mind to do so. Government sources confirmed that line, saying the flight ``could be revived at a later date.''

Thus, even as the Taliban trains ``jehadis'' who not only helped Pakistani regulars fight Indian forces at Kargil, but also infiltrate them into peacetime Kashmir, New Delhi seems to be keeping its options open.

The Government's decision has also come in the wake of the US Government order last month freezing trade relations with the Taliban, and earlier this month calling upon all countries, like Pakistan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and India, who still had flight connections with Afghanistan, to cancel them. On the face of it, the Government's reasoning is that the weekly passenger flight had been allowed to run so as to ``help'' Afghans of Indian origin to ``come home.'' But as the number of passengers reduced to a trickle, it was felt that the flight had become a losing proposition.

Truth is, that since the flight wascontrolled by the Taliban, Amritsar was used as a base to replenish food and supplies for the militia that now controls about 90 per cent of Afghanistan territory. Masood's forces based in the Panjshir valley, are the only ones still holding out against the Taliban militia, openly sponsored by Pakistan and the UAE. One pro-Masood Afghan hand here, however, said the so-called passenger flight, besides carrying food, vegetables and kerosene, also carried huge amounts of chemical substances that are used in the refinement of heroin. In effect, New Delhi joined in the war effort with the Taliban, the Afghan hand added bitterly.

Government sources here were silent about the claim that the Ariana flight funnelled heroin from India to Afghanistan but defended their decision to suspend the flight even after three years.

The sources pointed out that the voluntary release yesterday by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) of a letter by Prime Minister Vajpayee to the head of the Northern Alliance, PresidentRabbani, itself speaks volumes for the ``shift in direction'' of its Afghan policy.