1. Pan Am Flight 73 landed in Karachi

On the morning of September 5, 1986, Pan Am Flight 73 landed in Karachi. It had arrived from Mumbai and, had nothing gone wrong, would have departed for Frankfurt and onward to New York City. The flight was carrying, among members of other nationalities, Indians, Germans, Americans, and Pakistanis. Unfortunately, the flight was hijacked while it was parked on the tarmac at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi.

 

2.”The heroine of the hijack”

According to a citation released by the airline after her death, Ms. Bhanot’s “gallant actions were nothing less than heroic” as she along with nearly 400 other passengers and crew members were held hostage for over 16 hours. Twenty passengers, including two Americans were killed during the hijacking. She gave her own life while shielding 3 children from a hail of bullets. Neerja was recognised internationally as “the heroine of the hijack” and is the youngest recipient of the Ashoka Chakra, India’s highest civilian award for. The attackers were later arrested by Pakistani security forces.

She was the “captain”, who believed that she had to be the last person to quit – alive or dead.

According to Mrs. Malti Krishnaswamy and other eyewitnesses, Neerja was caught by the leader of the terrorists and shot point blank. In the dead body I saw bullets had hit her in the abdomen, on the shoulder near the neck and in the arm. When she opened the emergency exit, she could have herself been the first to slide down the chute. But she was the “captain”, who believed that she had to be the last person to quit – alive or dead.

https://twitter.com/sonamakapoor/status/594930797909561344/photo/1

 

3. She applied for a flight attendant’s job with Pam Am. There were nearly 10,000 applications but Neerja Harish easily found place among the top 80. 

Before the marriage, it was made clear that it would be a dowry less marriage. But when she reached the “ordained home” she was told that even a “very poor man gives something to his daughter in marriage”. She came back to Bombay to honour a modelling contract. An ugly letter followed, listing terms for her return, which no person with self-respect could accept. The letter listed a straight formula: accept the humiliating terms without a whimper and return at your own cost or “we will separate”. The worst was that the letter asked her as to what was she? “You are just a graduate”. The young girl could not pocket this. She applied for a flight attendant’s job with Pam Am. There were nearly 10,000 applications but Neerja Harish easily found place among the top 80. Some of her close friends in Pan Am knew of her marriage mishap. They say that Neerja had been clearly stating that if one day something happened to her, please see that even “his” shadow did not fall on her dead body. The girl with sinews of steel accepted the challenge “what are you” and has told “what she was”.

Guys : have you seen the stamp that the government of India made in the honour of #Neerja … https://t.co/ML5ooLiUrx pic.twitter.com/qZYGy2JUXM

— Sonam K Ahuja (@sonamakapoor) February 17, 2016

4. She was also a hardworking model.

According to the piece, Neerja, who was only 25 hours shy of her 23rd birthday when she was killed by the hijackers, was a “vivacious” and “valiant” girl who also dabbled in modelling. Her father describes her as being “highly duty-conscious”. Just three days before her death, she had returned from Frankfurt late at night. Yet, she spent the next two ‘off’ days shooting from morning to night, catching only a few hours of sleep before her ill-fated flight. Her mother even asked her to “excuse herself” from the flight, but Neerja refused to do so.

5.Known as ‘Lado’ at home, her family doted upon her.

Born in Chandigarh on September 7, 1962, Neerja was the first daughter born to her parents, who were already raising two sons at the time: Akhil and Aneesh. Her father wrote, “The maternity ward matron rang up to inform me that we had been blessed with a baby-girl. I was very happy to hear this and gave her a ‘double thanks’. She thought I had got her wrong and so she repeated “It is a daughter”. I explained to her the daughter had already 2 brothers and that is why it was an occasion for ‘double thanks’.” He added that Neerja, who attended Sacred Heart School in Chandigarh during her childhood, was almost never referred to by any other name at home than ‘Lado’.

 

‘Neerja’ – A Glorious Tribute to the Braveheart

The Movie based on Pan Am Flight 73 Hijacked. 

Neerja is a 2016 Hindi biographical thriller drama film written by Saiwyn Quadras, and directed by Ram Madhvani starring Sonam Kapoor in titular role of “Head Purser” Neerja Bhanot, while Shabana Azmi and Shekhar Ravjiani played supporting roles. The film was produced by Atul Kasbekar under the banner of Fox Star Studios. The film revolves around the Libya backed Abu Nidal Organization’s hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi, Pakistan on 5 September 1986, specifically focusing on flight attendantNeerja Bhanot who ensured the failure of the hijacking by preventing the plane from getting off the ground, she also saved the lives of 359 hostages in those long hours of incarceration.

Source : Wikipedia , Neerjabhanot.org.

 

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