The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has summoned the head of content at Netflix India on September 3 regarding the web series ‘IC-814 – The Kandahar Hijack.’ The series has sparked controversy on social media due to its portrayal of the hijackers, leading to widespread debate.
The series refers to the five hijackers of the Kathmandu-Delhi flight as Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola, and Shankar. This depiction has raised concerns, particularly among political figures. BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar expressed his dismay, stating, “I vividly remember IC-814. I was very aware of that incident and closely followed it. Every person in India and across South Asia knows that the hijacking of IC-814 from Kathmandu was carried out by terrorists backed by Pakistan’s ISI. No one believes that Indians were involved in the hijacking. So, the use of Hindu names for the hijackers in the series is puzzling. However, I am glad that the I&B Ministry and the Government of India have taken notice and summoned Netflix.”
Created by Anubhav Sinha and Trishant Shrivastava, the series features prominent actors such as Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Vijay Varma, Arvind Swamy, Patralekhaa, and Dia Mirza. The six-episode drama is based on real events that took place on December 24, 1999. The Indian Airlines Airbus A300, flight IC 814, was en route from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport to Delhi when it was hijacked shortly after entering Indian airspace.
The hijackers, who were posing as passengers, took control of the plane shortly after takeoff. The hostage crisis continued for seven days, ultimately concluding when the government, led by then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, agreed to release three militants in exchange for the hostages. There were 191 passengers and 15 crew members on board, one of whom was fatally stabbed, while several others sustained injuries.
BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya also voiced his concerns on X, saying, “The hijackers of IC-814 were dreaded terrorists who adopted aliases to conceal their Muslim identities. Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha legitimized their criminal intent by assigning them non-Muslim names. As a result, future generations might wrongly believe that Hindus were responsible for the IC-814 hijacking.”
Malviya further warned that such portrayals could undermine India’s security apparatus and shift the blame away from the actual perpetrators.
In a statement to Parliament, then-External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh detailed that the hijacked aircraft made multiple landings at Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai before reaching Kandahar, Afghanistan. The government eventually released three terrorists—Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar—from Indian prisons to secure the release of the hostages.
A statement issued by the Union Home Ministry on January 6, 2000, identified the hijackers as Ibrahim Athar, Bahawalpur; Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Karachi; Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Karachi; Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, Karachi; and Shakir from Sukkur city. The hijackers, during the ordeal, were known to the passengers by the aliases Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola, and Shankar, which they used to address each other.
(ANI)
