Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
Claim
Anubhav Sinha’s Netflix series, ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’, based on the 1999 hijacking of an Indian aircraft by five terrorists, concealed the Muslim identities of the terrorists and used Hindu names.
Fact
Creators did not deliberately change names, but showed the actual aliases used by the hijackers.
Film-maker Anubhav Sinha’s Netflix series, ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’, based on the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight on December 24, 1999, after the plane took off from Kathmandu, Nepal, has triggered controversy online shortly after it premiered on August 29, for allegedly changing the names of two of the hijackers to Hindu names.
A section of social media users has called for a boycott of the six-episode series for “whitewashing Islamic terrorism” and targeting Hindus. In the series, the terrorists have been seemingly named Bhola, Shankar, Doctor, Burger and Chief, with the names Bhola and Shankar sparking massive outrage.
“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. Left’s agenda to whitewash the crimes of Pakistani terrorists, all Muslims, served. This is the power of cinema, which the Communists have been using aggressively, since the 70s. Perhaps even earlier…,” read an X post by BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya.
The Hijacking Of Indian Airlines Flight 814
On December 24, 1999, five terrorists hijacked an Indian aircraft, 40 minutes after it took off from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal, en route to Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, India. The hijackers directed the aircraft to land in Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai before finally arriving in Taliban-controlled Kandahar, Afghanistan, with the primary aim being to secure the release of several Islamist terrorists detained in India.
During the ordeal, the terrorists released 27 of the 176 passengers in Dubai but fatally attacked one passenger and injured several others. The remaining passengers along with the crew members were held hostage for eight days. The stand-off came to an end when terrorists Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar were released.
Fact Check
Newschecker came across this statement by the then Union Home Ministry on the hijacking, dated January 6, 2000, where it stated that working in tandem with central intelligence agencies, the Mumbai Police had nabbed four ISI operatives based in Mumbai, who comprised the support cell for the five hijackers of the Indian Airlines Plane.
The statement names the hijackers as Ibrahim Athar, Bahawalpur; Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Gulshan Iqbal, Karachi; Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Defence Area, Karachi; Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, Akhtar Colony, Karachi; and Shakir, Sukkur city, confirming that the IAC Hijack was an ISI operation executed with the assistance of terrorist organisation Harkat-ul-Ansar and that all the five hijackers are Pakistanis.
“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,” read the statement, showing that the creators of the Netflix series did not deliberately change the names of the hijackers.
We came across passenger accounts of the hijacking, as seen in this Los Angeles Times article, dated January 2, 2000, where they stated that the hostages got to know the code names of all five hijackers — Chief, Bhola, Shankar, Doctor and Burger.
Newschecker came across this tweet by journalist Neelesh Misra and author of “173 Hours In Captivity: The Hijacking of IC 814”, stating that all the hijackers assumed false names and that is how they referred to each other and how the passengers referred to them throughout the hijacking.
We also came across several news reports, seen here, here, here and here, on the controversy, stating that the casting director of the series, Mukesh Chhabra, too, took to Twitter, to clarify that the terrorists used “nicknames or fake names” to address each other.
“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..,” he wrote on X. The tweet has since been deleted.
Also Read: ‘I Am A Big Fan Of Hindu’: Old Video Of Donald Trump Shared As Recent Ahead Of 2024 US Polls
Conclusion
Misleading claims stating that the creators of the Netflix series based on the 1999 Kandahar hijacking hid the religion of the Pakistani terrorists by using Hindu names have gone viral. The series showed the actual code names used by the terrorists.
Result: Missing Context
Sources
MEA statement, January 6, 2000
Los Angeles Times article, January 2, 2000
Tweet, Neelesh Misra, August 31, 2024
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
