'Clinton did what no indian minister bothered to do'

The Katyals with Bill Clinton

When the American Ambassador in India Richard Celeste contacted me on March 16 and told me that the President of the United States of America wants to meet Rachna, my wife Kusum and myself, I did not know what to say. We were still mourning the death of Rupin Katyal and here was an invitation from the most powerful man on earth to meet him.

Newly married, Rupin and Rachna were on a holiday to Nepal. They were returning to Delhi by Indian Airlines flight IC 814 when militants hijacked it. Rupin was the only passenger to be killed by the hijackers.

I consulted my wife and other members of the family and decided that we should meet President Bill Clinton and tell him about our feelings and the trauma that we had undergone in the last three and a half months. Over the next few days, we were in constant touch with Celeste and kept track of the developments.

Eventually, the meeting was fixed for March 21 at seven in the evening. In the morning, Ambassador Celeste called me up and told me that he would send a vehicle to pick us up for the meeting. I told him that there was no need for him to do that as Gurgaon was too far from the venue of the meeting. Instead, I asked them to pick me up from Hotel Radisson [near the Indira Gandhi International Airport].

Half an hour before the meeting, one Brian from the American embassy arrived to pick us up from the hotel. At the Maurya Sheraton, Richard Celeste received us at the porch. He took us to Chandragupta, the Presidential suite.

The meeting lasted precisely for fifteen minutes, from 7 to 7.15 pm. Clinton expressed his heartfelt condolences on the brutal death of Rupin. We were so touched by his kind gesture that we all broke down while narrating the sordid incident in which we lost our dear Rupin. President Clinton assured us that the American government would do everything in its power to ensure that the hijackers were brought to book and punished. He condemned terrorism and said that the killers of Rupin would not be spared.

We all told him in detail about the sufferings that we had undergone since we lost Rupin. Rachna told him how the hijackers kept her in the dark about the death of her husband. They told her time and again that he had been injured and was in a hospital in Dubai.

I had taken with me a book entitled The Inside Story and marked certain portions for his attention. In particular, I showed him the pages where the author had referred to my son. "My son kept on asking for water and they did not give him water. He cried, 'papa pani, papa pani'. Instead of giving him water, those brutes threw a blanket on his face." [Katyal breaks down as he narrates the story]

Clinton took the book and read the portions that I had highlighted. He was all attention as he listened to us. The meeting between Clinton and my family took place in a private room of his suite. I gave a photograph of my son Rupin to him. He wrote on it - 'With Respect and Regrets to Mrs Rachna Katyal, Chandermohan Katyal and Kusum Katyal'. He did not ask our names, nor did he misspell them. (Rachna has started working with Indian Airlines since March 1, 2000).

I drew his attention to the killing of 35 innocent Sikhs in the Kashmir Valley and asked him how long this madness would continue. He assured me that the American administration is doing everything it can to stop the killing of innocents. We have made news because Bill Clinton invited us to meet him. But after a few days, we would recede into the background and things would continue as normal. But we have lost our dear Rupin.

When he [Clinton] was talking to Rachna, she broke down and would just not stop weeping. He felt sorry for her. I know, whatever he said to us came from the bottom of his heart. Three and a half months after the tragedy, not even a single minister visited us to express his condolences. Clinton has done what others could not.