Anubhav Sinha calls IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack controversy ‘gobar’, says he doesn’t feel ‘responsible’

Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha briefly addressed the controversy surrounding his latest project, the Netflix series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack in a recent interview. A section of the audience took offence to how the series presented the five terrorists who hijacked an Indian Airlines flight in 1999, and felt that their real names should’ve been highlighted over the code names that they used during the operation. In the show, a couple of the hijackers are identified by their factually accurate code names Bhola and Shankar, which some audiences were outraged by.

In an interview with casting director Mukesh Chhabra, Anubhav spoke about the backlash, but also addressed the warmth coming his way. Asked about the loud reception that the show opened to, Anubhav said, “It’s confusing. Ek taraf mohabbat hai, aur ek taraf gobar hai (On one side there is a lot of love, and on the other, there is crap).” Asked if he felt ‘responsible’ for the negativity, he said, “No, I don’t take myself that seriously. I just want to do my job with absolute sincerity and hard work. I wouldn’t have taken this on had I not been in love with the story. I loved it, that’s why I did it. All that remains is hard work, and the rest is up to the universe. The universe is both destructive and constructive…”

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IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack debuted on Netflix in August, and earned positive reviews. At a success meet for the show, which saw the cast in attendance as well, Anubhav was asked about the controversy for the first time. He deflected the question and demanded to know if the journalist who’d asked him the question had seen the show themselves.

Following the controversy, a Netflix executive was summoned by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, after which the streaming platform agreed to add a disclaimer before every episode, highlighting the hijackers’ real names. A video discussion featuring actor Vijay Varma and captain Devi Sharan, the man-in-charge of the hijacked Indian Airlines flight, also identified the hijackers by both their real and assumed names.