Amid demands from a sector of social media users for a boycott of the series IC 814: The Kandahar hijacking For allegedly hiding the real identities of the terrorists involved in the 1999 incident, casting director Mukesh Chhabra on Sunday claimed that the perpetrators used nicknames among themselves and proper research was done for the show. (Also Read | IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack Review: The Avengers of Indian Acting Assemble for Anubhav Sinha’s Gripping and Nuanced Thriller)
Directed by Anubhav Sinha, the series is based on the hijacking of an Indian airliner by five terrorists on December 24, 1999, 40 minutes after it took off from Kathmandu. It began streaming on Netflix on August 29.
Using the hashtags #BoycottNetflix, #BoycottBollywood and #IC814, many X-rated users shared posts claiming that the makers changed the names of the kidnappers to Shankar and Bhola to supposedly protect terrorists who belonged to a particular community.
One user accused Anubhav of “deliberate distortion of facts” and called the series “propaganda.” “…it is a vile attempt to rewrite history, downplay the terror inflicted by the real hijackers, and subtly glorify their actions. By reducing the tragedy of IC 814 to an absurd narrative, Sinha has shown where his loyalties lie: not with the victims or the truth, but with an insidious agenda that seeks to whitewash the brutality of terrorism and vilify the Hindu community,” the person wrote on X.
“@anubhavsinha changed the names of IC814 hijackers to Shankar and Bhola. This is how Bollywood let TERRORISTS WIN – #BoycottBollywood #IC814TheKandaharHijack,” wrote another. “The names of IC814 terrorists are Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar. In the movie – Shankar and Bhola!” read one post.
Mukesh, a prominent casting director in the industry, said the terrorists used “nicknames or fake names” to address each other. “I am reading a lot of tweets about the names of the hijackers. We did proper research. They used to call each other by those names – nicknames or fake names, whatever you want to call them.”
“And thank you all for loving the cast. A big thank you to my team and especially Anubhav Sinha for trusting us and giving me the freedom to explore. #IC814 #Netflix,” he wrote on X.
Five terrorists, Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter and Sayed Shakir, hijacked the IC-814 aircraft during its flight from Kathmandu to Delhi on December 24 that year.
At least 154 passengers and crew were held hostage for eight days, and the standoff ended when the hardline terrorists, Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, were released and flown by the then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh on a special plane to Kandahar.
IC 814: The Kandahar hijacking Vijay Verma, Naseeruddin ShahPankaj Kapur, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra, Arvind Swamy, Dia Mirza and Patralekhaa among others.
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