Neerja Bhanot :India's Youngest Braveheart recipient of India's highest peacetime military award for bravery, the Ashok Chakra.

Today is the birth anniversary of Neerja Bhanot, youngest recipent of India's highest peacetime Military award for bravery, the Ashok Chakra. She was a flight attendant for PAN AM based in Mumbai India, who was murdered while saving passengers from terrorists on board the hijacked plane Pan Am Flight 73on September 5th 1986.

She was the senior flight purser on the ill- fated Pan Am Flight 73, which was hijacked by terrorist when it landed at Karachi,and was enroute for New York via Frankfurt. As she alerted the cockpit crew about the hijack ,the american cockpit cerw fled from the aircraft. Being the senior most cabin crew member on-board, she took charge.
The terrorists then instructed Bhanot to collect the passport of all the passengers in order to identify the Americans. Bhanot and other attendant hid the passport of 41 American Passengers on-board.

After 17 hours, the Hijackers opened fire and set off explosives. Bhanot opened the emergency door and helped the number of passengers to escape. She could have been the first one to escape but not. She decided to stay helped the fellow passengers. She was shot while shielding 3 children from bullets.

Afterwards She was recognized internationally  as "Heroine of the Hijack". She became the youngest recipient of the Ashok Chakra Award, India's highest award for bravery during Peacetime. In 2004 Indian Postal Service released a stamp commemorating her.

Stamp in the memory of Neerja Bhanot

The hijackers were captured by Pakistan, tried, convicted and sentenced to death in 1988. However death sentence were later commuted into life in prison.

In 2001 one of the hijackers who shot passengers, namely Xayd Hassan Abd Al-Latif Masud was captured by FBI in Bangkok after being released by  Pakistan and currently serving 160 year prison term in America. Four other were freed from Pakistan in January 2008. FBI announced $5 million bounty on their heads. In 2010, Pakistan said that one are killed in drone attack in North Waziristan. However this was never confirmed by FBI and remained unsolved till Date..