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Netflix's series IC 814- The Kandahar Hijack is in controversy for showing incorrect facts. The terrorists were shown with Hindu names in the series, however, after getting a rebuke from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, their real names have now been added to the series with a disclaimer. Meanwhile, a statement of a passenger who was present in the flight at the time of the hijack in 1999 has come to light. He has told that he became friends with the hijackers on the fourth and fifth day of the hijack. They also played antakshari together before landing in Afghanistan.
Recently, in an interview given to a website, passenger Ipsita Menon, who was present in the flight during the hijack, shared her experience of the hijack. She told that she was 24 years old at that time. On 24 December 1999, she was on an Air India flight to return to India from Kathmandu after finishing her honeymoon.
On the first day of the hijack, she thought she was going to die, but when the flight reached Afghanistan on the fourth or fifth day of the hijack, the terrorists became very cool. They were playing antakshari with the passengers. Ipsita Menon has told in an interview that the codename of one of the terrorists was Burger. When Burger came and sat next to her, he asked her why is your name Burger, do you like burgers. This is how she became friends with the terrorists.
The terrorists had said- we will kill everyone one by one
Ipsita told in the conversation that on 29th December, the terrorists had told all the passengers that whoever believes in whichever God, should remember him, because they are going to kill everyone one by one. Everyone got scared. Ipsita was also crying and then she fell asleep while crying. After some time, a terrorist woke her up, then she thought that now it was her turn to die, but that did not happen.
Two days later, on 31 December 1999, all the passengers were released. Let us tell you that in order to release the passengers, the terrorists had put a condition before the Indian government to release the terrorists imprisoned in the jail. In exchange for the passengers, 3 terrorists including terrorist Masood Azhar were released.
The series IC 81, based on this real incident, was released on Netflix on 28 August, in which Vijay Verma, Dia Mirza, Pankaj Kapoor, Patralekha are in important characters. After the release, the series has been accused of misrepresenting many facts. The codenames of the terrorists in the series are shown as 'Bhola' and 'Shankar', on which the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had sought an answer from Netflix content head Monica Shergill. Now, as the controversy has escalated, a disclaimer related to the codename and real name has been added in the series.