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Indian Airlines pays Rs 8.7 lakh to Rachna Katyal

Indian Airlines has paid damages to the widow of Rupin Katyal who was killed by the hijackers of Flight 814 on Christmas eve, an airline spokesman said in New Delhi on Friday.

Spokesman R N Pathak said the airline paid Rs 870,000 (20,000 US dollars) to the 20-year-old Rachna Katyal, whose husband was fatally stabbed after an Indian Airlines Kathmandu-Delhi flight was hijacked by five armed men on December 24.

"It is normal compensation and given to the family as part of the Warsaw Convention," Pathak told AFP, referring to the international treaty on air piracy.

The 25-year-old Katyal, returning from his honeymoon, was killed for repeatedly ignoring the hijackers' warnings not to look at their faces.

Airline sources said a job was also being offered to Katyal's widow, Rachna, as a humanitarian gesture but the spokesman declined to confirm the report.

Pathak, however, said no compensation would be paid to the others who were held in Kandahar until their release on December 31, when India freed three jailed Kashmir militants and swapped them for the 160 passengers and crew on board.

"The convention does not provide for such claims," Pathak said as reports published Friday suggested that some of the passengers planned to sue the loss-making airline for one billion rupees (23 million dollars).

"They have no claim as the pact provides for compensation to be given only in the event of death of a passenger during a hijacking," the spokesman said.

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Nightmare on Flight 814

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