Government summons Netflix India's content chief amid 'IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack' web series row

The government has summoned Netflix India's content chief amid the major uproar surrounding 'IC 814', a web series on the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight by Pakistan-based terror outfit Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, according to reports. The summons from the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry comes after hundreds of social media users accused the creators of the web series of intentionally changing the hijackers' identities to "Bhola" and "Shankar". Anubhav Sinha directed the web series based on the book 'Flight Into Fear: The Captain's Story' by Devi Sharan, the flight's captain, and writer Srinjoy Chowdhury.

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The controversy

The online series documented the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 on December 24, 1999. With 191 passengers, the jet took off from Nepal's Kathmandu and was bound for Delhi. Shortly after takeoff, five hijackers acting as passengers took control of the jet. It later made many landings in Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai before being transported to Kandahar, Afghanistan.

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To guarantee the hostages' release, the government, then led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was obliged to free three notorious terrorists from Indian prisons: Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar. According to allegations, Taliban authorities assisted the hijackers and the released terrorists in reaching Pakistan. According to a statement issued by the Union Home Ministry on January 6, 2000, the hijackers were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, and Shakir.

• Netflix India
• IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack
• Vijay Verma
• Netflix