All you need to know about the IC 814 Kandahar Hijack controversy

The flight from Kathmandu to Delhi was hijacked on December 24, 1999. (File Photo)

What was the controversy?

Directed by Anubhav Sinha, the series is based on the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight IC-814, which was en route from Kathmandu to Delhi.

The show draws from the memoir Flight Into Fear by Captain Devi Sharan, who was in command of the plane.

The controversy erupted when some viewers accused the series of deliberately fudging the religious identities of the five terrorists involved in the hijacking. The controversy was over “Hindu names” used as aliases by the Pakistani terrorists involved in the hijacking.

A still from the show IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack.

In the series, the five hijackers are referred to by code names—Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola, and Shankar.

BJP leader Amit Malviya criticized the series on X (formerly Twitter), claiming that by assigning “non-Muslim” aliases to the hijackers, the filmmakers had ensured that people would “think Hindus hijacked IC-814”.

A still from IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack.

In response to the backlash, the series added a disclaimer at the beginning to clarify both the real names and aliases of the hijackers.

However, a Home Ministry statement from January 6, 2000, available on the Ministry of External Affairs website, confirms that these were indeed the code names used by the hijackers from the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen terror group.

(L to R) Dibyendu Bhattacharya as Abhijeet Kumar, Manoj Pahwa as Mukul Mohan, Arvind Swamy as DRS, Kumud Mishra as Ranjan Mishra in IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack.

What has happened since the row erupted?

People from the film fraternity have henceforth come to support Sinha. Veteran director, Sudhir Mishra in a pursuit to clarify the air around the web series said, “You will not find a more patriotic Indian than Anubhav Sinha…, he grew up in Benaras and studied in Aligarh. Ram Ram kehte bada hua hai. It would be wrong to say bad things about him.”

Vijay Varma trains in a flight simulator with Captain Devi Sharan. (Photo: Vijay Varma/Instagram)

In another interview by the chief of the R&AW at the time, AS Dulat, and Anand Arni, a former special secretary at the R&AW, who were part of the negotiations team in Kandahar, spoke about how terrorists had an upper hand in the entire hijacking episode. They talked about the possibilities at hand, including puncturing tyres and blocking the plane with a bowser, when it was grounded in Amritsar.

Survivors of the December 24 hijack have also come forward with their personal accounts and ordeals. The Netflix show recaps those events and tries to show a fraction of the terror that she lived through in those days.