- Wednesday, March 12, 2025
‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ is based on the 1999 hijack of an Indian aircraft by five terrorists on December 24, 1999. It started streaming on Netflix from August 29
By: Shajil Kumar
THE GOVERNMENT has summoned the content head of OTT platform Netflix over the series ‘IC-814 – The Kandahar Hijack’, which has triggered a row over depiction of hijackers.
Official sources said the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has summoned the content head of Netflix India on Tuesday, seeking an explanation on the allegedly contentious aspects of the OTT series.
‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ is based on the 1999 hijack of an Indian aircraft by five terrorists on December 24, 1999, 40 minutes after it took off from Kathmandu.
It started streaming on Netflix from August 29.
The depiction of hijackers of the Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi has kicked off a row with a section of viewers objecting to the ‘humane’ projection of the perpetrators.
Using hashtags #BoycottNetflix, #BoycottBollywood and #IC814, many X users shared posts claiming the makers changed the names of the hijackers to ‘Shankar’ and ‘Bhola’ to allegedly protect the terrorists who belonged to a certain community.
BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya said the hijackers of IC-814 were dreaded terrorists, who acquired aliases to hide their Muslim identities.
“Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha, legitimised their criminal intent, by furthering their non-Muslim names,” Malviya posted on X.
“Decades later, people will think Hindus hijacked IC-814,” he said.
“Left’s agenda to whitewash the crimes of Pakistani terrorists, all Muslims, served. This is the power of cinema, which the Communists have been using aggressively, since the 70s. Perhaps even earlier,” Malviya said.
“This will not just weaken / put in question India’s security apparatus in the long run, but also shift the blame away from the religious cohort, that is responsible for all the bloodshed,” he said.
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said it was really amusing to see the people who took movies like ‘Kashmir Files’ as the gospel truth having a melt down at the way the events of IC814 are depicted in the Netflix show.
“Now suddenly they want accuracy and nuance packaged in the script,” Abdullah said on X.
‘Proper research done’
IC-814 casting director Mukesh Chhabra on Sunday claimed the perpetrators used nicknames for each other and proper research was done for the show.
He said the terrorists used “nicknames or fake names” to address each other.
“I am reading so many tweets about the names of the hijackers. We did the proper research. They used to call each other by those names—nicknames or fake names, whatever you want to call them.”
“And thank you, everyone, for loving the ensemble cast. A big thank you to my team, and especially to Anubhav Sinha for trusting us and giving me the freedom to explore. #IC814 #Netflix,” he wrote on X.
Five terrorists Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter and Sayed Shakir hijacked the IC-814 plane during its flight from Kathmandu to Delhi on December 24 that year.
At least 154 passengers and crew were held hostage for eight days and the stand-off ended when hardcore terrorists Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar were released and the then external affairs minister Jaswant Singh took them on a special plane to Kandahar.
“IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack” features an ensemble cast of Vijay Varma, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra, Arvind Swamy, Dia Mirza and Patralekhaa, among others. (PTI)
