Controversial filmmaker Anubhav Sinha is all set to distort one of the darkest chapters in India’s recent history – the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814.
For the unversed, the Airbus was hijacked on 25th December 1999 while it was en route to Delhi from Kathmandu. It was carried out by 5 terrorists belonging to the Islamist outfit ‘Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.’
The Indian government had to release three terrorists Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, Masood Azhar, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar to secure the release of 185 people (including passengers and crew members).
Anubhav Sinha has created a web series for Netflix dubbed ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’, which will be spread across 6 episodes. The web series is based on the book “Flight Into Fear”, written by the hijacked plane’s captain Devi Sharan and Srinjoy Chowdhury.
While speaking to The Indian Express, Sinha claimed, “I thought I knew about the incident and then I read the script. I shouldn’t say I didn’t like it, but I thought we should do more with it.”
As such, the controversial filmmaker decided to give a ‘360 degree view of the hijacking’. In his own words, he began ‘researching’ the IC 814 hijacking incident along with film writer Trishant Srivastava and journalist Adrian Levy.
Terrorists played antakshari, apologised to flight caption: Anubhav Sinha
“The three of us then started jamming and that is when it started to take the shape it has now,” Sinha told The Indian Express. And he came up with bizarre findings.
During his interview with the Indian daily, he alleged that the hostages were somehow playing ‘antakshari’ with the Islamic terrorists. Sinha further claimed that the people onboard also exchanged numbers and hugged the hijackers.
On top of it, he alleged that one of the terrorists had hurt the Indian Airlines Flight 814 captain Devi Sharan even ‘apologised’ for his actions.
Hijacking like no other
Anubhav Sinha claimed, “The captain himself told me that one of the terrorists, who was nastiest of the lot and gave him a scar on his neck, came to the captain, hugged and apologised to him.”
He further added, “The hijacker even told the captain, ‘Mai apke kisi kaam aa sakta hu toh batana ap’ (Let me know if you ever need any favour).”
“The captain told me that the people were exchanging phone numbers. They were playing antakshari on the last day,” Sinha continued.
The web series is set to stream on Netflix from 29th August onwards and will feature tense negotiations and high-stakes diplomacy besides obvious distortions.
The reality of IC 814 Hijacking
It must be mentioned that one of the hijackers of Indian Airlines Flight 814 was Ibrahim Azhar, the elder brother of Masood Azhar.
He along with the 4 other terrorists onboard the airbus brutally killed a 27-year-old electronic engineer named Rupin Katyal, who was on his honeymoon with his wife Rachna.
Rupin was stabbed to death while Rachna remained with other hostages, unknowing of the tragedy that befell her fate. “I had no idea that he was stabbed. I don’t know why it happened to me,” the widowed Rachna said in 2009.
A Bhopal-based builder named Durgesh Goel who was on the same hijacked flight suffered nightmares for years at an end. The memory of the incident still haunts him and his wife Renu.
“It took me 10 years to board a flight after that incident. My wife and I lived through a nightmare that will remain seared in our souls,” he told The Times of India.
He emphasised, “Bhola and Burger used to hit passengers, while Doctor and Chief used to talk with the authorities. Those 175 hours were the worst part of each passenger’s life who was on that flight.”
While Anubhav Sinha was to give his usual ‘Bollywood spin’ to a national tragedy, the testimonies of the victims onboard Indian Airlines Flight 814 would always thwart attempts to humanise terrorists.
The terrorists released in exchange for hostages
Maulana Masood Azhar, upon his release, started a new outfit named ‘Jaish-e-Mohammed’ (JeM). Within a year of its inception, JeM launched a series of deadly attacks that almost brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a full-scale war.
Azhar has been responsible for several direct attacks on Indian soil including on the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the Pathankot airbase attack in January 2016 and the 2019 Pulwama terror attacks.
Freed terrorist Omar Sheikh, just like Maulana Masood Azhar, became one of the biggest security threats not just for India, but for the United States.
All thanks to his connections inside Pakistan’s military and the innermost circles of Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda. He is known for the 2002 beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was investigating the financing of Al-Qaeda.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the United States, the US investigators had discovered that Omar Sheikh used aliases to send money from the United Arab Emirates to Mohamed Atta – the main terrorist leader of the 9/11 attacks.
After his release, terrorist Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar carried out several terror attacks in Kashmir. He actively recruited and trained youngsters for ‘Jihad’.
The intelligence officials believe that Zargar is suspected to be the man behind the June 2019 terror attack in Kashmir’s Anantnag, in which five CRPF personnel were killed and three others were injured after terrorists attacked them with grenades. In 2017, Zargar claimed responsibility for many of the grenade attacks on the security forces in the Kashmir valley.
