Life Event of Neerja Bhanot in Five Points

BENGALURU: The latest Bollywood release ‘Neerja' has been creating a buzz in the country. The Sonam Kapoor starrer is critically acclaimed for its gripping narration of the real-life incidence. The movie is a biopic of Neerja bhanot, who sacrificed her life while evacuating more than 300 passengers from the hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 at the Karachi airport. Here are the five life events of the brave-heart Neerja Bhanot, as reported by the Top10Wala.    

Early life:

Neerja was born on 7th September 1986 in Chandigarh to a Mumbai based journalist Harish Bhanot and wife Rama Bhanot, she did her early schooling in the same city and later moved to Mumbai with her parents and pursued further education there.

College, Modeling and Marriage:  

She spent her college life in St. Xavier's College where she also got into modeling profession by signing assignments. In 1985, she got married, arranged by her parents and flew to Gulf to live with her husband. Unfortunately, she became the victim of dowry torture, which eventually resulted in Neerja returning to India.

Career:

After returning to India she decided to repulse her adversity and applied for the flight attendant’s job with Pan Am airlines. To her merry, she was one among the 80 selected candidates for the job out of 10, 000 applicants.

Hijack:

On 5th September 1986, the Pan Am flight that carried Neerja and passengers was headed to New York form Mumbai, by way of Karachi and Frankfurt. After taking off, the plane landed at Karachi, where five terrorists boarded the plane and hijacked it. The objective of the terrorists was to crash the plane in Israel. 

Realizing the slipping-out situation, Neerja alerted crew and passengers of the flight. The terrorists asked Neerja to collect all the passports from passenger to find out American citizens, but she along with her staff hid 40 American passports to shun the further barbarous acts terrorists.

After 17 hours of seize, terrorists opened firing. Understanding the situation, Neerja opened the emergency gates and helped all the passengers to get away from the confinement.

When Neerja opened emergency doors she could have saved her life by escaping, but she refrained and let passengers flee, eventually she was spotted by the terrorists and was shot dead. Since that day she is being referred as ‘hijack heroine’.

After Death:

In order to honor her superhuman sacrifice, the Government of India, posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra Award (India's highest gallantry award for bravery in the face of the enemy during peace time) and Neerja became its youngest recipient.

In 2004 the Indian Postal Service released a stamp commemorating her. The Mumbai municipal corporation paid homage by naming a chowk after Neerja Bhanot in the city and in 2007 she was awarded ‘Justice of Crown’ by the U.S government.

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