Nepal PM-elect Sushila Karki’s husband involved in 1973 hijack of plane carrying actor Mala Sinha

In what is being seen as a startling revelation from Nepal’s political history, Durga Prasad Subedi, husband of former Chief Justice and now a top contender for the post of Nepal’s Prime Minister, Sushila Karki, was one of the three men who carried out the country’s first-ever aircraft hijacking in 1973.

The dramatic incident, known as the Biratnagar Plane Hijack, unfolded on June 10, 1973, when a Royal Nepal Airlines passenger aircraft carrying 19 people, including Bollywood actress Mala Sinha, was hijacked mid-air.

As Nepal’s politics takes another dramatic turn with Sushila Karki emerging as a key contender for the country’s top post, the spotlight has returned to her husband’s audacious past.

Subedi, then a youth leader of the Nepali Congress, along with Basanta Bhattarai and Nagendra Prasad Dhungel, forced the pilot to divert the Kathmandu-bound aircraft to Forbesganj in Bihar, India.

The target was not the passengers but the Rs 30 lakh in cash being flown by the Nepal Rastra Bank. The money was seized to fund the Nepali Congress’s underground campaign to topple the autocratic Panchayat system headed by King Mahendra and restore multi-party democracy.

After the loot was transported secretly to Darjeeling with the help of other Nepal Congress leaders, including future prime ministers Girija Prasad Koirala and Sushil Koirala, the hijackers went into hiding. Within a year, most were arrested in India, though they were later released after the lifting of the Emergency period in India in 1975.

The incident has since been chronicled as a turning point in Nepal’s pro-democracy movement. The very aircraft involved continued flying for four more decades before it was destroyed in a 2014 crash. Its remains are now on display at a museum in Kathmandu.