The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has summoned Netflix India’s content head on September 3, amid row over the ‘IC 814’ web series.
The series has triggered a sharp reaction on social media, with users accusing the series makers of concealing the real identities of the hijackers and misrepresenting several details of what had transpired in the 1999 incident, said an ANI report.
“No one has the right to play with the sentiments of the nation,” a senior official said.
Netflix’s show ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’, released on August 29 is based on the real life hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight by Pakistani terrorists in 1999.
Five terrorists Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter and Sayed Shakir hijacked the IC-814 plane during its flight from Kathmandu to Delhi on December 24 that year.
At least 154 passengers and crew were held hostage for eight days and the stand-off ended when terrorists Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar were released and the then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh took them on a special plane to Kandahar.
“Every man and woman in India and indeed in South Asia knows that the hijack of IC-814 from Kathmandu was committed by Pakistan’s ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence)-backed terrorists…nobody thinks that there were some people from India who did the hijacking. So, how the people have Hindu names in that movie, I don’t know…I am happy that the I&B Ministry and the Government of India have taken cognisance of this and summoned Netflix,” said former Union Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar.