Blame game?

The recently released Netflix series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack has caused an uproar on the Internet. The series, directed by Anubhav Sinha, is based on the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814. Six terrorists — Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny, Ahmad Qazi, Zahoor Mistry and Shakir — of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen terrorist outfit, hijacked the flight and demanded the release of Pakistani terrorists held in a prison in India, namely Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar.

However, the streaming series is getting slammed on social media over the alleged whitewashing of the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI; for humanising the cruel terrorists and over its misleading content. Several users also alleged that the religion of the hijackers was deliberately changed by the makers.

One Internet user wrote on X, “Kandahar flight hijackers’ original names: Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar, Sunny Ahmed, Zahoor Mistry and Shakir. In Anubhav Sinha’s web series IC 814 they were named as Bhola, Shankar and more. This is how whitewashing is done cinematically.” Another wrote, “The hijackers of IC814 were lethal, cruel — to even attempt to show some of them as human in the Netflix series is unfair.” A third wrote, “I noticed that too and was extremely surprised. Not a cool thing to do. I wonder how the @NetflixIndia team can be so reckless to let this happen.”

However, according to the Ministry of External Affairs report dated January 2000, Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola and Shankar, were the names by which the hijackers invariably addressed one another.

Journalist-writer-lyricist Neelesh Misra, who wrote the book 173 Hours in Captivity: The Hijacking of IC814, also took to X, and wrote, “Shankar, Bhola, Burger, Doctor and the Chief, the brother of then-jailed Masood Azhar himself. All the hijackers assumed false names. That is how they referred to each other and how the passengers referred to them throughout the hijacking. Regards, the author of the first book on the IC-814 hijacking.”

The hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 and the subsequent hostage crisis lasted for seven days and ended after India agreed to release the three terrorists.