IC 814 hijack: A 3-foot platform at airport allows Nepal to save face, meet India’s security demands

When you pass through the security checks and head over to the apron of Kathmandu’s international airport to board an Indian airline, you are asked to enter a strange contraption. It is a covered platform on wheels, and about three feet above the ground. Here, your bags are checked and you are frisked once more before you are allowed to ascend the stairs.

If you are an inquisitive type, you may have wondered how high the sovereignties of Southasia’s countries extend into the stratosphere. If you take the example of this apparatus at Kathmandu’s airport, the answer seems to be that national jurisdiction extends only up to about three feet. If you are standing, then you are in Nepali territory only till about your mid-thighs – depending on how tall you are, of course. An infant or a child may easily remain wholly within Nepali sovereign space, but an adult wishing to do so will have to lie down. Obviously the average, curious reader will demand an explanation about all this ridiculousness.

The story begins with the 1999 hijacking of the Indian Airlines IC 814 Kathmandu-Delhi flight by militants who used Indian passports and managed to get past airport security, it is said, with...

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