Child Hostage Recalls Hijackers

The Associated Press
Saturday, Jan. 1, 2000; 1:27 p.m. EST

NEW DELHI, India –– Holding the wrapper of a chocolate given to him by a hijacker, 12-year-old ex-hostage Himanshu Sharma recalled Saturday how one of his captors handed him a gun during the ordeal.

"They said it is a revolver. It has six bullets," the boy said, taking a break from playing soccer with his brother and cousins a day after his family's release. "He asked me if I felt scared and I said, 'No.' So he said what you don't get by asking you have to snatch with the power of the gun."

Sharma and his family were among the 155 hostages held captive for eight days on an Indian Airlines plane in Afghanistan. The plane was hijacked by masked gunmen while en route from Nepal to New Delhi, India on Dec. 24.

After making three stops, it landed in Kandahar, Afghanistan and stayed there until Friday, when India freed three convicted prisoners in exchange for the lives of Sharma and the other hostages.

"It was very suffocating inside," Sharma said of the plane. "I feel great to be able to look at the sun again."

Sharma said the experience has not made him afraid of flying in the future.

"It is only sometimes that it gets hijacked," he said.

Another former hostage, a 12-year-old boy named Anshul, was praying with his family at a Sikh temple on Saturday. He said he had been eating on the flight when his sister grabbed his hand and pointed out a masked man with a gun headed their way.

"Then they told us to put our trays down on which we were eating," Anshul told Associated Press Television News. "Then I looked down, and for about two to three hours I was in the same position."

"After two to three days they started becoming very friendly," Anshul said of the hijackers. "They played little games and treated us very well."