IC-814-The-Kandahar-Hijack

Netflix series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ uses Hindu names for hijackers

The Netflix series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack has created a storm not only in the entertainment world but in the entire Indian community around the globe. The series, released on OTT, has blatantly used Hindu names for hijackers, when the whole world knows they were all but one Pakistanis and all of them Muslims.

As the Modi government limps on, there is hardly any work being done in the information broadcasting ministry area. The over committed Minister – Ashwani Vaishnav is snowed under multiple portfolios and thus can be excused for not keeping his eyes on the road. It has been more than five years since the critics raised concerns for a complete lack of regulation for any content released on the OTT platform. Hindu bashing continues; truth twisting is rampant and anything national being shown in the poorest possible light.

All this under the rule of the so-called “saffron” leader of the country Narendra Modi.

The makers of the series have taken advantage of this lack of regulation and used the aliases used by terrorists, whose real names have been well documented since January 2000. They were:  Ibrahim Athar, Bahawalpur, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Gulshan Iqbal, Karachi, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Defence Area, Karachi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, Akhtar Colony, Karachi, and Shakir, Sukkur city. To hide their real identity, they had used aliases of “Bhola”, “Shankar” and “Doctor” etc., which the makers have taken advantage of, as the series clearly ends up obscuring the fact that Islamic terrorists and their sympathizers – hijackers had hijacked the Indian Airlines flight IC814 from Nepal to India.

The same Bollywood which has always depicted Hindus in poor light, even when making movies on documented history recording wrong-doings of other communities, is now defending the makers for being truthful.

With the anti-Modi forces on the rise in India, the multi-starrer series, which relives the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight by terrorists, garnered rave reviews. But with the Twitterati waking up, the dormant Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry has reportedly summoned Netflix India’s head of content with a ‘please explain’.

Like all other things that Modi government is expected to do and hardly delivers, nothing much can be expected of it.

Apart from the Hindu names of the hijackers, the series hammers home the deal which the Vajpyee government had to make with the hijackers – giving in to their demands – to release the three most dreaded terrorist of all times Indian has ever faced Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Sheikh.

Although there have been many hijackings and negotiated release of terrorists during the Congress rule at various times. It is worth mentioning terrorists were released from prison to secure the freedom of Ms Rubayya Sayeed, daughter of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, while he was Home Minister in VP Singh’s Government. This particular one – IC814 to Kandahar is the only which took place during the BJP rule and can be used to attack Modi rule and show it in bad light, which it does.

Playing politics through movie making is all part of the game. Warriors from both sides, all sides have the constitutional and artistic freedom to engage in those pugilistic tactics. But twisting or obscuring facts to continuously paint a particular community in poor light has to end.

IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack has been directed by Anubhav Sinha and stars Vijay Varma, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Manoj Pahwa, Arvind Swami, Anupam Tripathi, Dia Mirza, Patralekhaa, Amrita Puri, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Kumud Mishra in key roles.

A blog post by Kanchan Gupta, an OSD with the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpyee, titled – The Truth Behind Kandahar shows some light on what actually happened during those turbulent days. You can also read – The Truth Behind Kandahar here.

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