The I & B ministry has summoned Netflix’s head of content over Anubhav Sinha’s web series, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, which has triggered a controversy over its “humane” portrayal of the hijackers of an Indian Airlines plane from Kathmandu to Delhi on December 24, 1999 and the non-revelation of the real identities of the hijackers. The ministry said, “Nobody has the right to play with the sentiments of the people of this nation.”
The series, based on the hijacking by Pakistan-based terror outfit Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, has sparked a heated debate on social media, with a section of the public alleging inaccuracies and misrepresentation of the events and also claiming that it “hid the real identities of the terrorists involved in the incident”. Several social media posts accused the series makers of changing the names of the hijackers to Shankar and Bhola to allegedly shield their identities. It is a fact that the hijackers had used the aforementioned nicknames for each other during the real hijack. The actual names of the hijackers were Ibrahim Akthar, Sunny Ahmad Qazi, Zahoor Mistry, Shahid Akhtar Sayeed and Sayed Shakir.
The I & B ministry has expressed concern over the portrayal of the hijackers and emphasised that Indian culture and civilisation should be respected. It has warned filmmakers against misrepresenting acts. BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya said, the hijackers were dreaded terrorists who acquired aliases to hide their Muslim identities. Malviya posted on X, “Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha legitimised their criminal intent by furthering their non-Muslim names. Decades later, people will think, Hindus hijacked IC 814.”