Amidst the growing controversy over Netflix’s web-series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’, former cabin crew member Anil Sharma has said that many scenes are fictional. This did not happen in reality. Anil Sharma was present in the plane at the time of that incident. He said that the cabin scene is also controversial because as shown in the web-series, the hijackers slapped the crew, nothing like this happened in reality.
Anil Sharma said that no crew member was bloodied and neither was the air hostess slapped, then I don’t know why this was highlighted. Anil Sharma said that he realized the seriousness of the situation when, after the murder of a passenger, I and my colleague were called to Dubai airport to lift his body. There we came to know that the matter was very serious. At that time the systems were not that advanced. Today’s technology has gone far ahead. Many senior officials were involved in this entire incident. Whatever you say, this incident did happen. A lot happened, nothing is going to change by my comment.
Anil Sharma said that it is very easy to criticize the role of the then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, but his visit to Kandahar had a very positive impact. India has paid a very big price for releasing three terrorists Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar. After that, those terrorists carried out many attacks in India, in which Pakistan also had a hand.
Anil Sharma said that there should be a body that can decide on such scenes in films. It is very important to put a check on showing such things. He further said that I have to say with sadness that according to me, those who are supporting this web-series, it is not right. Not everything is about earning money. One should also have this thought in mind that I am doing wrong.
The web series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack was released on the OTT platform Netflix on 29 August. It depicts the story of the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight ‘IC 814’ flying from Nepal’s Tribhuvan International Airport to Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport in the year 1999 by five terrorists. As soon as the flight took off, five terrorists on board the plane hijacked it. There were 176 passengers on board the plane, some of whom were foreigners as well.
The plane was supposed to reach New Delhi airport in the evening, but shortly after, it was learnt that it had been hijacked. The flight was taken to Amritsar instead of Delhi at gunpoint for refueling. The plane stayed in Amritsar for some time, but that did not work, so the terrorists took it to Lahore, but the Pakistani ATC did not allow it to land. Later, the plane was given permission to land, then it was refuelled and landed at Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates. Here, the hijackers released 27 passengers. From there, the plane left directly for Kandahar in Afghanistan.
The five terrorists who hijacked the flight were all Pakistanis. Their aim was to release Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar who were imprisoned in India. According to the Foreign Ministry report of January 2000, the hijackers on board the plane had hidden their names and they addressed each other by the fictitious names Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola and Shankar. The names of the five terrorists of the terrorist organization Harkat-ul-Mujahideen who hijacked the plane were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Saeed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistry Zahoor Ibrahim and Shakir.
The round of talks started from India’s side on 25 and 26 December. On 27 December, the Indian government sent a team headed by Vivek Katju, Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry, to Kandahar. It also included Home Ministry officials Ajit Doval and CD Sahay. All the citizens were released on 31 December 1999, about eight days after the plane hijacking. In exchange for the release of the citizens, the hijackers were handed over to Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar.
After eight days of terror, all the citizens were brought back to India safely. At the time when the plane was hijacked, there was an NDA government in India and Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. The government had to face criticism for releasing the terrorists. The case was investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). They had made 10 people accused, out of which seven accused including five hijackers are still absconding and their whereabouts have not been known till date.
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