KUALA LUMPUR: Investigators have concluded that the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was hijacked, an official said Saturday.

According to the report cited by Xinhua, which is yet to be corroborated, the hijackers had rich flying experience and they switched off communication devices deliberately and steered the Boeing 777 aircraft off course.

Although piracy is no longer a theory, the motives are yet to be established, the official was quoted as saying. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is scheduled to hold a press conference in Kuala Lumpur Saturday.

The Malaysia Airlines flight with 239 passengers and crew on board vanished mysteriously about an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur early morning March 8. It was presumed to have crashed off the Vietnamese coast in the South China Sea.

The 227 passengers on the flight included five Indians, 154 Chinese and 38 Malaysians. Contact with the plane was lost along with its radar signal when it was flying over the air traffic control area of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

A multinational intensive search has so far failed to locate the plane.

On Friday, Malaysia confirmed that search areas for the missing aircraft had been widened to cover the Indian Ocean, but made no comment on US reports that the aircraft sent signals to a satellite for four hours after it went missing.

As of Friday, 57 ships and 48 aircraft were involved in the multinational search operation. - IANS

KUALA LUMPUR: Addressing a press conference on the missing plane in Kuala Lumpur today noon, Malaysian PM said the movement of the plane was consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane. He said with a high degree of certainty that the aircraft communications were disabled shortly before it reached East Coast.

He said all possibilities as to what caused the plane to deviate from flight path were being investigated.

The PM said the search for MH370 was ending in South China Sea as the satellite data places aircraft in one of the two corridors: North from Northern Thailand to Kazakhastan or South from Indonesia to Southern Indian Ocean. - TNS

DHAKA: Bangladesh on Saturday joined international search operations to trace the missing Malaysian plane by deploying frigates and aircraft in its exclusive economic zone in the Bay of Bengal.

In line with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s directive, two patrol aircraft and two navy frigates — BNS Omar Faruque and BNS Bangabandhu — have joined the search, primarily to look for the aircraft in Bangladesh’s exclusive economic zone, a defence ministry spokesman said.

Bangladesh decided to join the search for the missing Flight MH370 with 14 other countries in view of emerging possibilities that the plane could be tracked down in the Bay of Bengal, he said.

Replying to a question, the official said no time limit was issued for the duration of the campaign.

The decision came amid reports suggesting that faint electronic signals sent to satellites from the missing aircraft show it might have been flown thousands of miles off course before running out of fuel over the Indian Ocean. - PTI

NEW YORK: An arrest warrant was today issued against Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade on visa fraud charges after her fresh indictment by US prosecutors who accused her of "illegally" underpaying and "exploiting" her domestic maid.

39-year-old Khobragade, who was arrested in New York on December 12 and has since been transferred to the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, faces arrest if she visits the US where her husband and two children are staying.

Following the fresh 21-page indictment, US Attorney in Manhattan India-born Preet Bharara said in a letter to US District Judge William Pauley that an "arrest warrant was also issued today" against the diplomat and that the government "will alert the court immediately upon the defendant’s arrest so that an appearance" before the judge may be scheduled.

The new charges, which came two day after a US court dismissed an earlier indictment on Wednesday, accused her of visa fraud and making false statements about the visa application of her maid Sangeeta Richard.

The indictment states that the diplomat "knowingly made" multiple false representations and presented false information to US authorities in order to obtain a visa for a personal domestic worker.

The fresh indictment filed in a court in Manhattan also charges that Khobragade submitted to the US State Department an employment contract of her domestic worker which she knew contained "materially false and fraudulent statements." A grand jury had earlier returned a true bill on the two-count criminal indictment of Khobragade.

The indictment said, "Khobragade did not want to pay the victim the required wages under US law or provide the victim with other protections against exploitative work conditions mandated by US law.

"Knowing that if the US authorities were told the truth about the actual terms of her employment agreement with the victim, Khobragade would not have been able to obtain a visa for the victim, Khobragade decided to make false statements to the US authorities," it said.

Khobragade was arrested on visa fraud charges and for making false statements regarding the visa application of her maid.

She was strip-searched and held with criminals, triggering a row between the two countries with India retaliating by downgrading privileges of certain category of US diplomats among other steps.

The diplomat has refuted the charges against her. - PTI 

NEW DELHI: Reacting strongly to the second indictment against its diplomat Devyani Khobragade in the US, India today said it was an "unnecessary" step and any measure consequent to the decision will "unfortunately" impact upon efforts on both sides to build India-US strategic partnership.

Making clear that as far as India was concerned the case has no merit, the Spokesperson in the External Affairs Ministry said, now that Khobragade has returned, the court in the US has no jurisdiction in India over her and government will therefore no longer engage on this case in the US legal system.

"We are disappointed that the relevant office of the United States Department of Justice chose to obtain a second indictment against Devyani Khobragade, despite the fact that the first indictment and arrest warrant were dismissed earlier this week," the Spokesperson in the External Affairs Ministry said.

India's reaction came after US prosecutors re-indicted her on visa fraud charges and accused the Indian diplomat of "illegally" underpaying and "exploiting" her domestic maid. The second indictment, which came a day after a US court dismissed an earlier indictment, accused her of visa fraud and making false statements about the visa application of her maid Sangeeta Richard. The MEA Spokesperson said, "This was an unnecessary step.

Any measures consequent to this decision in the US, will unfortunately impact upon efforts on both sides to build the India-US strategic partnership, to which both sides are committed." He also made it clear that as far as India was concerned, "we reiterate that the case has no merit. Therefore this second indictment has no impact on our stated position. Now that Dr Khobragade has returned to India, the court in the US has no jurisdiction in India over her. Government will, therefore, no longer engage on this case in the US' legal system." 

The 21-page indictment, filed by the office of India-born US prosecutor Preet Bharara in the US, states that the diplomat "knowingly made" multiple false representations and presented false information to US authorities in order to obtain a visa for a personal domestic worker.

The fresh indictment filed in a federal court in Manhattan also charges that Khobragade submitted to the US State Department an employment contract of her domestic worker which she knew contained "materially false and fraudulent statements." - PTI

NEW DELHI: The Income Tax department has floated a toll-free helpline number for general public to alert it about any suspicious movement of large sums of cash in the national capital during polls.

The investigation wing of the department has created a control room and complaint monitoring cell at its office in New Delhi on the instructions of the Election Commission (EC) which wants to curb the use of blackmoney and illegal inducements in the poll process.

The toll-free number — 1800110132 — will be monitored round-the-clock and will be supervised by a senior officer in the rank of Joint Director (I-T), a senior official said.

The department has also prepared a team of chosen sleuths which will be monitoring blackmoney related instances with special emphasis on the measures deployed for the election period, a senior I-T officer said.

The EC has created an Election Expenditure Monitoring cell within its establishment to monitor illegal money and other such bribes to voters during the forthcoming Parliamentary polls in Delhi.

The I-T department is a part of this mechanism. Delhi has seven Lok Sabha seats and will vote on April 10. - PTI