Netflix updates disclaimer for IC814 series, to have real names of hijackers
After the Information and Broadcasting Ministry summoned Netflix India content head over the use of pseudo names of hijackers in its latest series ‘IC814: The Kandahar Hijack’, the OTT platform today updated the show’s opening disclaimer.
Monika Shergill, vice-president, content, Netflix India, said: “For the benefit of audiences unfamiliar with the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814, the opening disclaimer has been updated to include the real and code names of the hijackers.”
Netflix India today assured Centre that it would ensure that the content of its future projects would take into account the sentiments of Indian public. The development came during a meeting between Netflix India content head Monika Shergill and Information and Broadcasting Secretary Sanjay Jaju in New Delhi.
At the 40-minute meeting, Shergill was apprised of the sensitivity of handling such topics. The controversy arose after several users on X alleged that the real names of the hijackers should have been used in the conversation depicted aboard the plane.
A press release by the Ministry of Home Ministry on January 6, 2000, names the hijackers as Ibrahim Athar from Bahawalpur, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi and Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim — all from Karachi, and Shakir from Sukkur City.
The MHA had said: “To the passengers of the hijacked place, these five hijackers came to be known Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola and Shankar, respectively, the names by which the hijackers invariably addressed one another.”
The IC814 from Kathmandu to New Delhi was hijacked on December 24, 1999. The plane first landed at Amritsar, where the hijackers demanded refuelling but then turned back the fuel truck on their own. It then landed at Lahore where it was refuelled and taken to Kandahar, Afghanistan, then under the control of the Taliban. The plane, passengers and the crew were taken hostage for almost eight days.
India had to release Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, with the then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh escorting them on board a special plane to Kandahar as part of swap deal to release hostages.
