Explained | Row over names of hijackers in Netflix series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’

The contention over the names of the hijackers in ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ emanates from the creative liberty taken by the makers of the series not to explicitly make it clear that the terrorists used codenames during the hijack

Netflix’s latest web series IC 814: The Kandhar Hijack flew into a patch of turbulence early this week when several social media users expressed outrage over the names of the four hijackers in the critically-acclaimed series. Responding to the outrage, the Information & Broadcasting Ministry summoned Monika Shergill, the content chief of the OTT platform. A public interest litigation has also been filed before the Delhi High Court by the president of an outfit called ‘Hindu Sena’. The plea alleged that the series distorts the religious identities of the hijackers by naming two of the five hijackers as Bhola and Shankar and sought revocation of the certification of the series.

Directed by Anubhav Sinha, the six-episode series depicts the hijacking of IC-814 flight on December 24, 1999, moments after it took off from Kathmandu for Delhi. The Airbus 300 was diverted to Amritsar, Lahore, Dubai, and finally to Kandahar in Afghanistan, which was under Taliban control. After six days of intense negotiations, the hijack culminated with the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government releasing three dreaded terrorists, Masood Azhar, Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, in exchange for the safety of the passengers and crew on board.

The series is partly based on Flight To Fear, a first-hand account of the events by the pilot of the plane Captain Devi Sharan that he wrote with journalist Srinjoy Chowdhury. A disclaimer describes it as a work of fiction set against the backdrop of certain real-life events.

The contention over the names of the hijackers emanates from the creative liberty taken by the makers of the series not to explicitly make it clear that the terrorists used codenames during the hijack and see it as a piece of information that goes without saying.

Several journalistic accounts of the period clarify that the hijackers used aliases. They cite a press release of the Union Home Ministry issued on January 6, 2000, that disclosed the names of the hijackers as Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayeed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, and Shakir and confirmed the aliases used by them. “To the passengers of the hijacked place these hijackers came to be known respectively as (1) Chief, (2) Doctor, (3) Burger, (4) Bhola, and (5) Shankar, the names by which the hijackers invariably addressed one another,” the press release read.

It seems the distinction is clear to some of those outraged and they appear more concerned about the future when the details of the hijack fade away from public memory. BJP leader Amit Malviya wrote on X, “The hijackers of IC-814 were dreaded terrorists, who acquired aliases to hide their Muslim identities. Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha, legitimised their criminal intent, by furthering their non-Muslim names. Result? Decades later, people will think Hindus hijacked IC-814.”

Though the series doesn’t explicitly spell out that Bhola and Shankar are code names, it does unmask Chief when the negotiation threatens to hit a dead end. In a post on X, journalist Neelesh Misra, who also penned a book on the subject, said Chief was the brother of Masood Azhar. In the context of the narrative, Bhola and Shankar are minor players and are addressed by their code names only once in six episodes.