Kidnappings which made front page headlines for many days

Whether it is a kidnapping or a hijacking, the media has always given much coverage to both. At times the entire nation has prayed for a safe return. The 5 top kidnapping that became headlines of newspapers are:

1. Indian Airlines Flight 814

Not the longest, but one of the deadliest hijacking incident which rocked the world is of Indian Airlines Flight 814, which took off from Kathmandu to New Delhi, before being taken over by the Pakistan based terrorist on December 24th 1999.

The hijackers took the aircraft to Lahore, Dubai before landing it in the then Taliban ruled Afghanistan’s Kandahar. The hijackers demanded release of three terrorists – Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar,Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Maulana Masood Azhar.

The hostages were freed on 31 December 1999, when these three terrorists were released. The then foreign minister Jaswant Singh went to Kandahar along with the three terrorists.

2. Dr. Rubaiya Sayeed

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front's (JKLF) four terrorists abducted the daughter of former J&K chief minister Mufti Mohammad Saeed when she was just 23 years old. She was kidnapped within five days of her father being made the first Muslim minister for Home Affairs (India) by the V P Singh Government.

She was kidnapped at 3:45 p.m. on December 8, 1989, about 500 metres from her home at Nowgam when she was returning from the Lal Ded Memorial Women’s Hospital in a local mini bus. The terrorists forced her out of the vehicle at gunpoint into a waiting Maruti car and disappeared.

Later, the government released five terrorists Sheikh Abdul Hameed, ,Ghulam Nabi Butt, Noor Muhammad Kalwal, Muhammed Altaf and Javed Ahmed Zargar for getting Rubaiya free. At present, Rubaiya Sayeed lives in Chennai along with her husband.

3. 1994 Kidnapping of Western Tourists

Four foreign tourists were kidnapped by Kashmiri separatists on October 20, 1994 in New Delhi. Three of those kidnapped, Paul Benjamin Ridout, Christopher Myles Croston and Rhys Partridge were from Great Britain and a fourth, Bela Nuss was an American. Kashmiri separatists had threatened to behead the hostages one by one unless the Indian government freed 10 jailed terrorists.

Bela Nuss was freed on 31 October when the police, while investigating a robbery, came across the house where he was being kept captive in Ghaziabad,UP. After the interrogations from those who were captured, the police rescued the three Britons from Saharanpur. Two policemen and a terrorist were killed in a pre-dawn shoot-out at Saharanpur.

4. Kannada film actor and singer Rajkumar

The famous Kannada filmstar was kidnapped from his residence at Gajanur in Tamil Nadu on 30 July 2000 by forest brigand Veerappan. He was released on 15 November 2000, after 108 days of captivity.

5. Chhattisgarh’s Sukma DM Alex Paul Menon

The young Sukma district magistrate Alex Paul Menon was abducted on May 25, 2012, when he was returning from a village meeting. A group of 15 to 20 CPI(M) extremists stopped his entourage at Manjipara village. The Maoists also killed two personal security officers who accompanied the collector.

According to Menon, the Maoists drag him along on the day he was picked up. They untied him a day later, but he was made to walk for three more days in the jungles. The Maoists freed him after 12 days.