Release of hostages overtakes all other new year festivities

India's millennium celebrations were given extra impetus by the release on New Year's Eve of 160 hostages and crew members who had been held by hijackers for more than a week aboard an Indian Airlines jet. The passengers, most of them Indians, were flown to the Indian capital, Delhi, after being released from the aircraft which had been grounded in Afghanistan since Christmas Day.

The freed hostages were greeted by thousands of relatives, well-wishers and reporters. There was pandemonium as the bedraggled but jubilant passengers emerged into the glare of television lights at Indira Gandhi International Airport.

"I was just waiting to go to heaven on that plane," said a smiling Ms Anupama Gupta who had been on board the hijacked aircraft with her husband. "I wrote a letter saying goodbye to my four-year old daughter and hoped she would read it one day when she was grown up."

The hero of the hour was the pilot who was carried aloft on the shoulders of cheering crowds. Still dressed in his uniform, he wore a garland of flowers around his neck as more bouquets were thrown at him. "I'm going to take a long rest and see in the first sunrise of the new year," said an unshaven and exhausted Mr Vipin Menon when asked for his plans.

The hostages' freedom was secured by the Indian government which agreed to release three Kashmiri separatists from jail. Amid criticism that the handing over of the militants was a triumph for terrorism, the government pointed out that the hijackers' initial demand had been for the release of 35 militants - and $200 million.

The decision to let the militants go had been prompted by "credible threats" that the hijackers were preparing to blow up the plane, said the Indian government.

Over the weekend, the spotlight has turned to India's long-standing foe, Pakistan. Delhi accuses the military regime in Pakistan of having had a hand in the hijacking. "Hijack footprints lead to Pakistan", one Hindu newspaper put it yesterday.

In the face of denials by her neighbour, the Indian government said at the weekend that the five hijackers and the three freed militants were making their way out of Afghanistan to Pakistan. Delhi claims that all five hijackers are Pakistani nationals.

The saddest millennium story was of Rachna Katyal learning just before New Year's Eve that her husband, whom she had married a month previously, had been murdered by the hijackers.

Another was of television newsreader and quizmaster Bhaskar Bhattacharjee who jumped to his death from the top of a luxury Delhi hotel on New Year's Day.

Otherwise in yesterday's Indian newspapers, the main news was that India had had no major Y2K hitches. Listed by some analysts as being one of the countries least prepared to handle the Y2K bug, India appears to have made a smooth transition in the key areas of nuclear plants, satellites, power plants and civil aviation.

One of the most popular millennium images for newspapers and websites has been the breaking of the millennium dawn over the Taj Mahal. A global symbol of love and one of the wonders of the world, the Taj has since last week once again been open to tourists during moonlit nights.

India's official millennium focus is Khajuraho, the ancient temple complex known worldwide for its exuberant erotic sculptures. Khajuraho's millennium status derives from the fact that construction of the temples started a thousand years ago.

India claims that the first landmass in the world to get the new millennium sunrise was Katchal, a tiny dot in the Indian Ocean which is part of India's Nicobar Islands. As the first rays of the rising sun appeared on Saturday morning, people on the island blew conch shells and sang songs invoking the sun God.

"A bit of planning could have put Nicobar alongside the London Millennium Dome and the Sydney fireworks on the great celebrations list," declared a recent newspaper column somewhat implausibly.

The most sophisticated millennium parties were held in Bombay, that most glitzy and money-orientated of Indian cities. Thousands of people took to the streets to party and dance. For the beach party set, Goa on the western seaboard was the place to be.

For those of a more spiritual state of mind, there was Varanasi, formerly known as Benares. There the Dalai Lama and thousands of Hindu and Buddhist monks held a special religious service on the banks of the Ganges.

But in many parts of rural India, the new year crept in almost unnoticed. This is a country with low levels of literacy and many did not even know of the worldwide celebrations. The eastern state of Orissa was one of the most subdued; its population is still recovering from a recent cyclone which killed thousands and left even more homeless.

One Indian newspaper article recently announced that Delhi would win the title of "Most Boring Place to be in on January 1, 2000". The Indian capital might well have been a boring place to be had it not been for the release of the hostages. The drama of their plight occupied the whole country for more than a week. It seemed as if the whole nation was celebrating with them during their New Year's Eve release.