New Delhi, Dec. 25 :
Wails of despair rent the huge, sanitised waiting rooms at the Indira Gandhi International airport. Rupin Katyal?s family was inconsolable. The news of his murder on flight IC-814 had snuffed out the last glimmer of hope from the faces of his parents and relatives.
Grief was etched deep on the faces of bystanders, too, as the relatives sobbed their hearts out ? tragedy had struck like lightning, sudden and merciless.
Twenty-five-year-old Rupin was stabbed to death for defying the hijacker?s fiat: the passengers were to keep their heads down. He had looked up, trying to see the men threatening to cut off the thread of his newly-married life. The price of ?defiance? was nothing less than life itself.
The official confirmation of Rupin?s killing tore his family apart. The victim was returning from honeymoon with his 20-year-old wife Rachna. It would have been a happy family reunion, but destiny had written a tragic script.
Instead of receiving the newly-wed couple, their parents and relatives were handed over a corpse. And the widow?s life was still hanging in balance. Rachna was not among the fortunate ones released at the Dubai airport. She was still held captive at the Kandahar airport.
?Our world has been shattered,? howled P.K. Vij, Rupin?s uncle. The victim?s traumatised father had to be hospitalised. Rachna?s parents shrieked in agony as the Indian Airlines authorities confirmed the news of their son-in-law?s death around 10.30 am.
The couple?s families have been living in fear since they first heard about the murder on the radio. They were clutching on to a last straw, that the news was a hoax.
?I have only one son,? wept Rupin?s mother. Rachna?s parents kept asking why the hijackers, who had killed Rachna?s husband before her eyes, did not let her go. ?It is such a horrible way to die. Why could they not let Rachna go?? cried Vij.
At the height of hysteria, Vij, surrounded by scores of reporters, collapsed on the floor. There was no doctor around. Frantic calls were made and medical help was rushed to the relatives.
The hijack drama has entered a macabre stage where grief racks those facing their own loss and others quail in fear of what might lie ahead.
Rupin and Rachna were married on December 3 and left on honeymoon two weeks later. Nothing, nothing at all, had prepared their families for this twist of fate.