New Delhi :
Akshay Kumar and Nimrat kaur starrer Airlift is set to release tomorrow.The Indian war thriller is directed by Raja Krishna Menon. The movie is based on the world’s biggest air evacuation carried out by India in 1990.
On August 2, 1990 Iraq at the order of Sadam Hussein invaded Kuwait leaving millions of people stranded. At that time, Kuwait had become home to close 1,70,000 Indians who found their lives under threat. The Iraqi army was looting the country and people suffered numerous atrocities at the hand of their soldiers.
Not much is known about the operation but here are some of the facts to go through before you head to watch out the next release Airlift:
-Soon after the invasion began, the Iraqi army took over the city. The Kuwaiti royal family managed to escape to Saudi Arabia and left other people homeless and stranded.
-The biggest airlift in the world history ever was not an easy task for India. It had to evacuate 1,70,000 Indians, who were not even ready to leave what they had worked for so hard. It wasn’t that easy for them to leave the country as they didn’t have valid travel papers. Their employers used to hold on their passports once they landed in Kuwait. And those employers had either fled the country or were dead.
-Some of the big Indian businessmen got together to oversee the evacuation of the huge Indian contingent from war-torn Kuwait.
-Indian government systematically flew over 488 Air India commercial flights into a war zone to evacuate all 1,70,000 Indians and safely bring them back home.
-The year this evacuation took place India was not a stable economy itself like today. Financial trouble, heavy dependency on crude oil was all what our country was grappling with.
-This evacuation operation began on August 14, 1990 and continued for almost 2 months and finally came to an end on October 11.
-This massive operation is also recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records and is also regarded as the most successful evacuation ever carried out by any country in the history.
