Entertainment
Tell-all account of 1973 hijacking hits shelves
On June 10, 1973, a 19-seater Twin Otter passenger aircraft, bound for Kathmandu from Biratnagar, was hijacked to Farbisganj, India, where it was forced to land on a grass field. The three million Indian rupees the plane was carrying was looted by the hijackers, in what was the first, and only, political hijacking in Nepal’s history.On June 10, 1973, a 19-seater Twin Otter passenger aircraft, bound for Kathmandu from Biratnagar, was hijacked to Farbisganj, India, where it was forced to land on a grass field. The three million Indian rupees the plane was carrying was looted by the hijackers, in what was the first, and only, political hijacking in Nepal’s history.
Now Durga Subedi, who along with Basant Bhattarai and Nagendra Prasad Dhungel carried out the hijacking, has penned a tell-all memoir recollecting the early days of the Nepali Congress’ armed insurrection against the party-less Panchayat system and his journey in mainstream politics thereafter.
Born in 1946 in Dhankuta, Subedi is a noted name in Nepal’s democratic movement. He spent ten years of his life in exile and two years in an Indian prison for the hijacking, before going on to play a key role in brokering peace talks between the government and Maoist rebels during the 2006 democratic movement.
The newly-released memoir records Subedi’s participation in the armed struggle against the Panchayat regime while also retelling inside stories of the Koirala family, the reasons behind why the Nepali Congress took up arms, and a conspiracy hatched by his fellow party cadres to murder him. Moreover, the book also chronicles events from Nepal’s recent history, including a documentation of a meeting between CIAA chief Lokman Singh Karki and his wife Sushila Karki, former Chief Justice, where the CIAA chief allegedly offered to pay up a hefty bribe as hush money.
Biman Bidroha: Euta Rajnitik Apaharanko Bayan is published by the newly-founded Kitab Publishers.
The hijacked twin otter continued to fly over Nepali skies for 40 years after the hijacking before it fatally crashed in Arghakhanchi in 2014, killing all 18 onboard. Since then, the wreckage of the plane has been reassembled in the Capital and is today housed at the Sundarijal-based BP Museum.
The aircraft can now been seen in the BP Museum based in Sundarijal in the Capital.