While director Anubhav Sinha’s crime thriller drama miniseries IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, based on the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814, received significant acclaim, it also sparked controversy after some viewers accused the series of intentionally misrepresenting the religious identities of the five terrorists involved in the incident.
Even BJP leader Amit Malviya criticised the series on X (formerly Twitter), claiming that by assigning “non-Muslim” aliases to the hijackers, the makers had ensured that viewers would “think Hindus hijacked IC-814”. However, a statement from the Home Ministry dated January 6, 2000, available on the Ministry of External Affairs website, confirms that the code names used in the series were the actual ones employed by the terrorists from the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen group.
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Recently, Anubhav Sinha himself addressed the controversies and allegations of whitewashing the role of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the largest component of Pakistan’s intelligence community. In an interview with India Today, he was questioned about a scene where former Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden hosts a party for the hijackers without any ISI operatives present and asked whether the series was giving a clean chit to the spy agency. The interviewer based this question by mentioning that National Security Advisor Ajit Doval has repeatedly emphasised ISI’s involvement. Sinha responded that the events depicted in the show were accurate, stating, “That really happened.” He also reminded the interviewer that the show was based on extensive research and asked why that research couldn’t be respected.
“A very serious amount of research has gone into it. Also, at the end of the day, it’s a dramatic narration of an event. I am not writing history. If somebody has to refer to the Kandahar hijack, you won’t refer to this series, but other documents and source materials instead. You don’t go after films for historical references. Films get away with just a disclaimer saying ‘all the characters are fictional’. There are a lot of things in the show that go around the facts because there are no facts available. So, you dramatise it to put it together,” he explained.
Watch IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack trailer here:
He further clarified that the show’s portrayal of ISI involvement in Kathmandu aligns with the actual events and that the series does not attempt to give the agency any clean chit. “The series is not trying to be history. I had the rights to use the captain’s name, but I didn’t. I changed even his name. It’s a fresh take on what happened. When a conspiracy of this kind is executed, there are a lot of things that have clear answers; there would only be versions,” Sinha added.
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