Sushila Karki, former chief justice of Nepal and a likely frontrunner for the country's interim premiership, has drawn attention for her husband's role in a plane hijacking 52 years ago.
Ms Karki is married to Durga Prasad Subedi, a former youth leader of the Nepali Congress, whom she reportedly met while studying at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi.
Mr Subedi was reporterdly part of Nepal's first plane hijacking on June 10, 1973. On board the plane was Hindi film actress Mala Sinha.
Mr Subedi, then a youth leader of the Nepali Congress, led a three-member team alongside Nagendra Dhungel and Basanta Bhattarai. The operation was allegedly masterminded by Girija Prasad Koirala, later a four-time Prime Minister of Nepal, to raise funds for an "armed struggle" against the monarchy under King Mahendra, according to reports.
A report in The New York Times' print edition on June 11, 1973, citing the Nepalese Embassy, stated that three armed men hijacked a twin-engine Nepalese airliner, crossed into India, and fled into the jungle with around $400,000. The money, which belonged to the Nepalese state bank, was being transported on a routine flight to the capital Kathmandu.
"The men got in as passengers, and when the plane took off, they showed the pilot a gun and said they wanted to go to Forbesganj," the NYT report quoted an embassy official as saying. No passengers or crew were injured during the incident.
"The money was meant to support the fight for democracy launched by his party against the absolute monarchy," Dinesh Bhattarai, a retired Nepali ambassador to the United Nations, told Reuters in 2014.
The hijackers forced the pilot to land in Forbesganj, Bihar, where five other conspirators were waiting. Former Nepal PM Sushil Koirala was among those waiting for the money, Reuters reported, adding that he spent three years in Indian jails for his role in the hijacking.
The group reportedly removed three boxes of cash from the plane, which then resumed its journey with the remaining passengers. Within a year, all members of the group, except Mr Dhungel, were arrested by Indian authorities. Mr Subedi and the others served two years in jail, were later released on bail, and returned to Nepal shortly before the 1980 referendum, according to reports.
