Many stories have been published about the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane that flew from Kathmandu to Delhi 25 years ago. But the interesting incident that the passengers of the hijacked ship gave gifts to the then Taliban government after being freed from the hijacking may be new for many.

On the eve of Christmas, i.e. December 24, 1999, the hijacked ship was taken to Kandahar, Afghanistan and kept for seven days . How would the 178 passengers of the near-death plane share the joy of being freed from kidnapping? One of the eight on the plane was a Nepali, Sanjay Dhital from Gorkha. At that time, Sanjay was working at Amda International, an organization working for the health of Afghan refugees in Peshawar. 25 years after the incident, Dhital became nostalgic remembering the time when he was freed from kidnapping.

On the eighth day of Sanjay's abduction, when the abductor said that they had reached an agreement with the Indian government, the faces of all the passengers in the ship seemed to have a glimmer of hope that had been extinguished for a week. He said, 'When it was said that we would be free from kidnapping, it was said that all of us passengers should collect the currency of their respective countries and do something with that money.' According to

Dhital, he himself also did the work of collecting money from all the passengers. In a video conversation with Kantipur, he said, "At that time, before the terrorists left, they must thank the Taliban government for allowing them to stay for so long." But there was a conversation among the passengers about how to thank them. And we started collecting money.'

According to him, we had nothing to give to the Taliban government at that time. He said, "It was agreed to make a mockup (model) ship of the hijacked IC-814 ship and give it as a gift." He said, "All of us, including Indian, Swiss, Canadian, Italian, Japanese, American, French, and Australian, collected the currency of their respective countries." I don't remember exactly how much money was collected. However, around 27,000 were raised.' After coming to Nepal after being freed from kidnapping, Sanjay reached Peshawar in Pakistan for work. At that time, he made a mockup of the ship and took it to Kathmandu. But he didn't really like that mockup. He told a metal working company to make ship model again in Karachi . After 6/7 months of the incident, he made a metal model ship and handed it over to the Taliban government. He said that the remaining amount was handed over to the camp in Peshawar for the medical treatment of Afghan refugees.