Manoj Pahwa’s negotiation skills in IC 814 earned him the compliment of his life at the airport: ‘If we get hijacked…’

Actor Manoj Pahwa, who was recently seen in the Netflix series IC814: The Kandahar Hijack, said that he finds it quite difficult to stay in Mumbai every time one of his projects hits, and in the case of the Anubhav Sinha series, in which he plays an intelligence officer with the IB, Manoj felt that the stakes were too high. In a recent interview, the actor said that he left Mumbai when the show was releasing but when he was returning to the city, he got an amazing compliment at the airport.

In the show, Manoj played IB officer Mukul Mohan, who is sent from Delhi to Kandahar to negotiate with the terrorists. Talking to India Today, Manoj said that he was in Coimbatore when the show released. As he was waiting in a queue at the Coimbatore airport, ready to board his flight back to Mumbai, a few passengers spoke to him about the show. “There were a few families behind me and they said, ‘Sir, you are also on this flight. If this gets hijacked, who will negotiate?’ I was surprised that this just released, they have already seen it. In that moment, I thought, ‘Now I can go back to Mumbai, people have a good response’,” he shared.

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Manoj’s performance in those negotiation scenes has been praised by the audience. In an earlier chat with Anubhav Sinha shared by Netflix India, when Manoj was asked how he chose his tone for the interrogation scenes, the actor shared that he rehearsed with his wife, actor Seema Pahwa.

Manoj’s character in the series is inspired by Ajit Doval, who actually negotiated with the terrorists and helped in ending the hostage crisis. The show is based on the real life events of 1999, when Indian Airlines flight IC814 was hijacked by five men after it took off from Kathmandu. The flight first landed in Amritsar, then in Lahore, and then in Dubai, where 27 passengers were freed in exchange for fuel. The plane was then taken to Kandahar. The standoff lasted for a week.