After Indira Gandhi went to jail, this is why an Indian Airline was hijacked in 1978

Post Emergency, Indira Gandhi was jailed during 1978 and a mid-air drama was created while an Indian Airlines flight 410 was hijacked on December 20.

The Boeing 737 had 126 passengers on board, which also had two former ministers of Indira Gandhi’s regime, A.K Sen and Dharam Bir Singha. The flight was bound for Delhi and had lifted from Lucknow Airport at around 5:45pm, as it was a connecting flight originally from Calcutta to Delhi.

Just when the flight was about to reach Delhi, 15 minutes prior to that, two young men rose from their seats and came in front and straight away entered the cockpit, as the plane was getting ready for a landing at Delhi’s Palam airport.

The two men named, Bhola Nath Pandey and Devendra Nath Pandey had entered the cockpit after dodging the air hostess and asked the pilot to make an announcement that

“we had been hijacked and were flying to Patna. A few seconds later, his second announcement informed us that we were headed for Varanasi instead

The flight was hijacked by the two youth Congress leaders so as to get the Congress supremo and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi out of the jail and get all the charges pressed against her son Sanjay Gandhi dropped.

The plane had later landed in Varanasi and then UP Chief Minister Ram Naresh Yadav was in direct contact with the hijackers. Both, Devendra Nath Pandey and Bhola Nath Pandey had demanded an unconditional release of Indira Gandhi and the negotiations were on between the two parties.

Although, later on the father of Bhola Nath Pandey had arrived at the Varanasi Airport and he managed to get the two hijackers out of the plane , after he held talks with them over the phone.

Later, it was revealed that Bhola Nath Pandey was carrying a toy gun with him and Devendra Nath Pandey had termed a cricket ball as the bomb.

They both were rewarded with party tickets from the Congress party and Devndra Nath Pandey served as the general secretary of the UP Pradesh Congress Committee and nurtured the Sultanpur constituency thereafter. And, Bhola Nath Pandey, who belonged to Ballia, was made the general secretary of the Indian Youth Congress and secretaryof the Indian National Congress.

Also read: Indira Gandhi's Emergency was not an immediate step as the blueprint was planned 6 months before the