Anubhav Sinha is directing a series titled ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’. The series is set to premiere this month and is based on the 1999 Kandahar plane hijacking incident. For the uninitiated, the incident took place on December 24, 1999, when an Indian plane that departed from Nepal for Delhi was hijacked and the passengers were held hostage for seven days. Instead of Delhi, the plane stopped directly at Kandahar. This incident created a stir not only in India but across the world. Let’s take a look at the longest hijacking of a nation, which will soon be seen in a Netflix series.
There were 176 passengers on board during the Kandahar hijacking
The day was December 24, 1999. Indian Airlines flight IC 814 took off from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport bound for New Delhi. There were 176 passengers and 15 crew members on board the plane. Some hijackers had boarded the plane posing as passengers. As soon as the plane entered Indian airspace, the hijackers showed their true colors and took control of the entire plane. They pointed guns at the crew and passengers, beat them up and diverted the plane from Delhi to Pakistan. The news of the plane hijacking had reached India and there was chaos in the government department. Families of the passengers on board and the entire country were holding their breath. This incident was talked about all over the world because apart from Indians, there were some foreign passengers also on board the flight. The hijacked plane had stopped over for a while in Amritsar and then left for Lahore. The plane later landed in Lahore at 8:07 p.m. without seeking permission from the Pakistani government.
The next morning, the plane left Lahore for Dubai and from there landed directly in Kandahar, Afghanistan. When the hijacked plane arrived in Dubai, a passenger had an argument with the hijackers and was injured during the argument. The hijackers dropped the blood-soaked passenger in Dubai, who later died. In addition, 27 other passengers were released in exchange for refueling, most of whom were women and children. A diabetic man was then released. In addition, a woman suffering from cancer was allowed to leave the plane only for 90 minutes to receive treatment in Kandahar. A few hours after the hijacking of the plane, the hijackers began to make increasingly higher demands. These included the release of terrorists housed in Indian jails. They also demanded a ransom of 200 million US dollars.
What did the Indian government do?
Not only were the families of the passengers of the hijacked plane and their compatriots furious, but protests also broke out in India. At that time, there was an NDA government in India and Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister. Currently, the National Security Advisor to the Indian government, Ajit DovalThe Kandahar government, which was then ruled by the Taliban, was also involved in the operation. The Taliban intervened in the matter and thereafter the hijackers somewhat reduced their demands but remained firm in demanding the release of the terrorists. The pressure on the government was so great that eventually, in exchange for the safety of the passengers, a decision had to be taken to release three terrorists from Indian jails. These three terrorists were Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar.
Jaswant Singh was the then External Affairs Minister and he arrived in Kandahar with the three terrorists. Following the agreement between the government and the hijackers on December 31, all the passengers were released and all returned to Delhi. The then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself informed the countrymen about the release of the passengers of the hijacked aircraft and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The IC-814 aircraft was hijacked by Pakistani hijackers.
Talking about the series based on this incident, it will be released on Netflix on August 29. Stars like Naseeruddin Shah, Vijay Verma, Pankaj Kapoor and Kumud Mishra will be seen in the new web show.
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