'IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack' Faces "Boycott" Calls For Changing Terrorists Identity, Casting Director Reacts
A section of social media users is calling for the boycott of 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' Netflix series for allegedly hiding the real identities of the terrorists involved in the 1999 incident.
Netflix series 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack', starring Vijay Varma, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra, Arvind Swamy, Dia Mirza, and Patralekhaa, released on the streaming platform last week, and the new Hindi web series is receiving praise from all corners. Cinephiles and film critics are labelling the project as one of the best series to come out of India in 2024. However, a section of social media users is calling for a boycott of the series for allegedly hiding the real identities of the terrorists involved in the 1999 incident.
Netizens are using hashtags such as #BoycottNetflix, #BoycottBollywood, and #IC814, saying that the makers have "deliberately" changed the names of the hijackers to "Shankar" and "Bhola" to protect the terrorists who belonged to a certain community.
Amidst this growing outrage, casting director Mukesh Chhabra has claimed that the perpetrators used nicknames for each other, and proper research was done for the show.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Mukesh Chhabra said, "I am reading so many tweets about the names of the hijackers. We did the proper research. They used to call each other by those names—nicknames or fake names, whatever you want to call them. And thank you, everyone, for loving the ensemble cast. A big thank you to my team, and especially to Anubhav Sinha for trusting us and giving me the freedom to explore. #IC814 #Netflix."
For the unversed, 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' is based on the 1999 hijack of an Indian aircraft by five terrorists. The flight was hijacked 40 minutes after it took off from Kathmandu.
Five terrorists namely Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter and Sayed Shakir had hijacked the IC-814 plane during its flight from Kathmandu to Delhi.
At least 154 passengers and crew were held hostage for eight days and the stand-off finally came to an end when terrorists Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar were released. The External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh took them on a special plane to Kandahar.
