Something was fishy.  Was I day-dreaming or was it the fact that I felt rather dizzy after my nap?  I could not be sure.  The disabled bespectacled man did signal to other strange-looking guys?  Thinking of it as only my imagination having took off again, I went towards the toilets.

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I was in the Air France plane whose destination was Portugal.  The journey was to last about two days.  It was seven o’clock at night.  Having refreshed myself, I now proceeded to the compartment again, now wide-awake.  No sooner had I seated myself than four armed men emerged from behind.  One dashed to the cockpit and the rest pounced on us.  It was a hijack!

After a second or two of utter shock, all the passengers aboard, including me panicked.  Shrill screams, shrieks and cries of distress filled the airplane.  The latter was in a state of total chaos.  I was feeling very shaky.  A powerful, commanding voice suddenly spoke.  “Si-len-ce!”

There was a pause – where we quietened down.  “This is a hijack.  There are four of us; terrorists and we mean business.  So you sit at your respective places without causing any trouble.  Do as you are told.”

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There was nothing left to do anyway.  Two of the extremists had tied stewards and air hostesses up.  The captain was helpless and we were held at gunpoint.  A dead silence prevailed.  Only suppressed coughs were heard now and then.  The atmosphere was tense.  All feared these dangerous outlaws.  The criminals were really intimidating; their closed-up faces offered no warmth, sympathy nor pity.  They were probably of the same peer group and the three of them were also of similar height.  They all looked like Arabians.

The sequence of the hijack fitted itself together as pieces of a puzzle.  The supposed handicapped man – the one to attack the cockpit – was actually the brain of the band.  He planned it perfectly.  The crutches on which he lent upon enclosed the guns.  He signalled to his accomplices to follow him to the toilet, one by one.  Then, they went into action as I sat down, unsuspecting. 

The rebel in command, contacted without delay the police headquarters and announced the hijack, at the same time, threatening that his another fellow extremist in prison must be set free against the lives of three hundred passengers.  He also added that if he received a message from his friend – safe and sound – till tomorrow that he will liberate us. 

An impatient, anxious wait then started….

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