IC 814 hijacking: Who was Rupin Katyal, the lone passenger on the hijacked flight, killed by terrorists?
The release of the Netflix series 'IC-814: The Kandahar Hijack' has brought back memories of one of the worst acts of terrorism India has faced. The six-episode series is based on the events of 24 December 1999, when an Indian Airlines flight IC 814 en route to Delhi from Kathmandu was hijacked.?
IC 814 hijacking
The Airbus A300 had a total of 190 occupants, which included 179 passengers and 11 crew members, when it was hijacked by Pakistani terrorists shortly after it entered Indian airspace.??
The flight was initially diverted to Amritsar and then to Lahore and Dubai before landing in Afghanistan's Kandahar.??
How the hostage situation ended
The hostage drama ended on 31 December after the Indian government agreed to the demands of the hijackers and released three imprisoned terrorists - Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh, and Mushtaq Zargar.??
While all the others flew back to the safety of their homeland and to their loved ones, one passenger, Rupin Katyal, was not so lucky.??
Rupin Katyal, the lone passenger killed by hijackers
Rupin Katyal was the only fatality in the IC 814 hijack incident, and he was stabbed to death by the terrorists.??
Rupin Katyal, a recently-married businessman, was returning from his honeymoon along with his wife Rachna on the ill-fated flight from Kathmandu.??
What happened to Rupin Katyal
Rupin got separated from his wife Rachna when he, along with a few others, was made to move to the business class by the hijackers. At that time, it was said that Rupin was frequently turning back to check on his wife, which agitated one of the hijackers.??
Rupin was stabbed multiple times, and his body was deplaned in Dubai, where IC 814 had briefly landed before heading to Kandahar. Rupin was killed on 24 December, the day IC 814 was hijacked. However, his wife Rachna got to know about his death only after the hostages were freed on 31 December.??
Killer of Rupin Katyal shot dead
Mistry Zahoor Ibrahim aka Jamali, the Pakistani terrorist who is suspected of having stabbed Rupin to death, was gunned down in Karachi in March 2022 by unidentified gunmen.
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