IC-814 hijacking: What government documents say about the names of the hijackers?
Many have alleged that this was a deliberate distortion of facts by the makers of the series, when the real names of the Pakistani terrorists were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayeed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, and Shakir.
Netflix series 'IC-814: The Kandahar Hijack' has been embroiled in a raging controversy, with even a PIL being filed in the Delhi High Court on Monday seeking a ban on the OTT series over allegations of distortion of facts. The main point of contention is the names of the hijackers - Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola, and Shankar.
CREDIT: NEXFLIX
PIL seeking ban on IC-814: The Kandahar Hijack
A PIL by Surjit Singh Yadav, a farmer and president of Hindu Sena, sought a direction to the Centre and Maharashtra government to cancel the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) certificate, alleging that by erroneously showing the hijackers as having Hindu names, including ¡®Bhola' and ¡®Shankar', which are other names of Lord Shiva, it hurt the sentiments of the Hindu community.
'Distorting facts'
Many others, including BJP leader Amit Malviya, also criticised the series, saying that the filmmaker Anubhav Sinha legitimised the criminal intent of the hijackers.
Why is Anubhav Sinha, who's behind the new Netflix web series "IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack," altering the facts surrounding this critical event in history?@NetflixIndia, how can you air something so sensitive without thorough due diligence? Are you not concerned about the¡ pic.twitter.com/fiWIfJKw6e
¡ª Akassh Ashok Gupta (@peepoye_) September 2, 2024
"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," Malviya said in a post on X.
Who were the real hijackers?
Many have alleged that this was a deliberate distortion of facts by the makers of the series, when the real names of the Pakistani terrorists were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayeed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, and Shakir.
CREDIT: BCCL
Where did the names in Netflix series come from
However, it should be noted that they had used the code names Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola, and Shankar to communicate with each other.
¡°Shankar¡±
¡ª Neelesh Misra (@neeleshmisra) August 31, 2024
¡°Bhola¡±
¡°Burger¡±
¡°Doctor¡±
and the ¡°Chief¡±, the brother of then-jailed Masood Azhar himself.
All the hijackers assumed false names. That is how they referred to each other and how the passengers referred to them throughout the hijacking.
¡ª Regards, the author of the¡ https://t.co/fZgUZiXxPm
Dr. Anita Joshi is one of the hostages on the IC814 hijacked aircraft. She also told the names that terrorists was using to communicate with each other.
¡ª Newton (@newt0nlaws) September 1, 2024
RW could say that she is anti-Hindu.? pic.twitter.com/wipbCPowmG
What government said about names of hijackers?
Even the then Union Home Minister's statement on 6 January 2000, stated that passengers knew the terrorists by their code names.
CREDIT: MINISTRY OF HOME
¡°To the passengers of the hijacked plane, 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 said.
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Bobins Abraham is the Assistant News Editor at Indiatimes. He has more than twelve years of experience in TV and digital journalism. An avid student of history and geopolitics, he is a conservationist and environmentalist at heart. He writes on environment, sustainability, human-animal conflict and more.
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