IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack

IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack is a 2024 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller drama television mini series about the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 in 1999. It is directed by Anubhav Sinha and written by Adrian Levy and Trishant Srivastava. Produced by Sarita Patil and Sanjay Routray under Matchbox Shots and Benaras Mediaworks, it stars an ensemble cast led by Vijay Varma, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Dia Mirza and Arvind Swamy. Ninad Kamat serves as narrator.

IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack
Promotional release poster
Genre	Thriller Drama
Created by	Anubhav Sinha Trishant Srivastava
Based on	Flight Into Fear The Captain's Story by Devi Sharan and Srinjoy Chowdhury
Written by	Adrian Levy Trishant Srivastava
Directed by	Anubhav Sinha
Starring	Vijay Varma Naseeruddin Shah Pankaj Kapur Dia Mirza Arvind Swamy
Composers	Alex Lamy Richard Harvey
Country of origin	India
Original language	Hindi
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	6
Production
Producers	Sarita Patil Sanjay Routray Anubhav Sinha
Cinematography	Ewan Mulligan Ravi Kiran Ayyagari
Editor	Amarjit Singh
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	28-46 mins
Production companies	Matchbox Shots Benaras Mediaworks
Original release
Network	Netflix
Release	29 August 2024 (2024-08-29)

The series premiered globally on Netflix on 29 August 2024. It was the most watched show on Netflix for the first week of September.

Cast

• Vijay Varma as Captain Sharan Dev, pilot-in-command of IC 814 (anagram of Devi Sharan)
• Naseeruddin Shah as Cabinet Secretary Vinay Kaul, IAS (based on Prabhat Kumar)
• Pankaj Kapur as Vijaybhan Singh, Minister of External Affairs (based on Jaswant Singh)
• Arvind Swamy as DRS, Secretary of MEA
• Dia Mirza as Shalini "Sha" Chandra, Editor of India Headlines
• Kumud Mishra as Ranjan Mishra, Joint Secretary of RAW
• Manoj Pahwa as Mukul Mohan, Additional Director of IB
• Aditya Srivastava as V K Agarwal, Head of RAW (based on A.S Dulat)
• Additi Gupta as Air Hostess Chhaya
• Patralekha Paul as Air Hostess Indrani
• Amrita Puri as Nandini Martin, Reporter of India Headlines newspaper
• Dibyendu Bhattacharya as Abhijeet Kumar, senior officer in the MEA
• Pooja Gor as Simar Dev, Sharan's wife
• Kanwaljit Singh as J P Kohli, Director of IB
• Anupam Tripathi as Ram Chandra Yadav, RAW agent in Kathmandu
• Yashpal Sharma as Sanjay Mehta (cameo appearance)
• Sushant Singh as Lt. General Ravi Shankar, Director General of NSG (cameo appearance)
• Karan Desai as First Officer Sunil Sachdeva, co-pilot of IC 814 (based on Rajinder Kumar)
• Girish Dhaneja as Flight Engineer Rajendra Nangia (based on Anil Jaggia)
• Mu'azzam Bhat as Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, Foreign Minister of Afghanistan
• Asif Ali as Usmani
• Meer Sadhwani as Nabibullah Barkazai
• Harry Parmar as Shahid Akhtar Sayeed alias "Doctor" (hijacker)
• Diljhon Singh as Sunny Ahmed Qazi alias "Burger" (hijacker)
• Rajiv Thakur as Ibrahim Akhtar alias "Chief" (hijacker)
• Kunal Chopra as Zahoor Mistry alias "Bhola" (hijacker)
• Kamal Batra as Sakir alias "Shankar" (hijacker)
• Ninad Kamat as Narrator

Production

The series is adapted from the book Flight Into Fear by Devi Sharan and Srinjoy Chowdhury. In December 2023, a series on Amazon Prime Video was canceled due to the Tandav controversy.

In February 2024, the series was announced on Netflix. The trailer of this series was released on 19 August 2024.

Asian News International filed suit in India against Netflix in September 2024 for alleged use of their copyrighted material in the film footage.

Reception

Critical response

Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave 3.5 stars out of 5 and stated that "Authentic and to the point, Vijay Varma starrer is as good a web series as any we have seen this year." Shubham Kulkarni of OTT Play gave the series 4/5 stars and stated "IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack doesn't forcefully create a hero and Anubhav Sinha wins exactly there when he honours each being who managed to save even themselves." Divya Raje Bhonsale of Mathrubhumi rated the series 4/5 stars and states "A gripping Netflix series based on the 1999 Kandahar hijack, 'IC 814' features an impressive ensemble cast and a razor-sharp script. Must-watch for fans of historical dramas." A critic for Bollywood Hungama rated the web series 3.5 stars out of 5 and wrote "On the whole, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack sees the coming together of some of the most talented names of Indian cinema and also throws light on the shocking aspects of the 1999 hijack episode. Due to the taut execution, strong script and of course the ensemble cast, the show is sure to get a huge viewership."

Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com rated the series 3.5 stars out of 5 stars and notes "IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack begins by asking why the hijack lasted seven days and ends in wondering if the good guys fought the bad ones hard enough." Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the series 3/5 stars and notes "The Vijay Varma-Naseeruddin Shah-Pankaj Kapur show keeps it grounded, even when it’s in the air, and manages to distribute the tension evenly throughout." Shreyas Pande from Cinema Express rated the series 2.5 stars out of 5 stars and states "It’s a new leap here, as he (Anubhav Sinha) makes his web series debut and largely creates an engaging experience by showing nearly all that transpired during the dreadful hijack. Yet, something seems amiss. As the credits roll, you know certain information and it is just about enough to leave you curious. Nothing more, nothing less." Devansh Sharma of Hindustan Times notes "But in his (Anubhav Sinha) debut web series, he pulls off the Herculean task of telling a historical hijack story through a holistic, accurate, and non-judgemental lens." Anuj Kumar of The Hindu notes "Anubhav Sinha recreates the story of the longest hijack in Indian aviation history with precision, fairness and a touch of humanity."

Criticisms by experts, Indian officials and survivors

Several experts, high-ranking officers, senior journalists and the crew of the flight, including the former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief A.S. Dulat and Former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, have criticized the series for its historical inaccuracies and not showing the passengers' perspective correctly.

Journalist Vir Sanghvi said the series misleadingly downplays the role of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to the point of serving as "propaganda" for the spy agency, and minimizes the threat posed by the hijackers. Historian Hindol Sengupta said the film is "pathetic", accusing the filmmakers of glorifying terrorism and failing to "acknowledge the long-term impact of the terrorists released during the hijacking, diminishing the severity of the real-life events", according to a report in the Swarajya.

Dulat told India Today TV "There’s no doubt that the ISI had a role in this. It wasn’t just based on our intelligence reports; a well-known Pakistani journalist was in Kandahar at the time. He reported that it was obvious the ISI was orchestrating and controlling the entire operation". G Parthasarathy, India's high commissioner to Pakistan at the time of the IC 814 hijacking, calls Sinha's portrayal of al-Qaida and Taliban roles "ridiculous". He said in an interview, "It was totally Pakistani involvement. The persons concerned were Pakistanis. The people they wanted released were Pakistanis. So there is no question of al-Qaida, that's the farthest thing to say".

The series also shows intelligence from the Kathmandu RAW team on a possible hijacking of an Indian aircraft reaching the agency's headquarters in Delhi, which has been denied by multiple officers of RAW, including Dulat.

The series is also criticized for its gentle portrayal of the hijackers, with hijackers being empathetic towards the injured crew and passengers on board, while in reality, the hijackers had killed a person onboard and stabbed a German citizen Satnam Singh.

The series also failed to show the hijackers' attempts to religiously convert the passengers on board. Ipseeta Menon, one of the survivors of the hijack, recalled how the hijackers tried to convert them. She said "The Netflix series has missed the long speeches by 'Doctor'[one of the hijackers]". She also said "The high tension among the passengers hasn't been captured well".

Names of terrorists

The series has been criticized for changing the Pakistani terrorists real names to code names and Hindu names. The identities of the five hijackers were determined to be Ibrahim Akhtar (from Bahawalpur), Shahid Akhtar Sayeed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Mistry (all three from Karachi) and Shakir (from Sukkur). However, the series used their code names like Bhola, Shankar, Doctor, Burger, and Chief. This decision has led to accusations that the series downplays the identities of the terrorists, which some viewers argue dilutes the historical context and impact of the real events.

Journalist Neelesh Mishra, who has written a book on the hijacking, said "All the hijackers assumed false names. That is how they referred to each other and how the passengers referred to them throughout the hijacking". He clarified that he had not seen the series.

Pooja Kataria, a survivor of the hijack who was returning from her honeymoon in Kathmandu, said that the controversy over the show is unnecessary. She said "I have seen it. The controversy which is going on is needless. There is nothing like this, true event has been depicted and they (hijackers) had code names and they used to call each other using those names." She recalled that one of the hijacker with code name Burger gave her a shawl for her birthday, had conversations with the passengers and played Antakshari game during the hijacking.

Following the public uproar, India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting directed the content chief of Netflix India to appear before it and offer an explanation about the allegedly contentious aspects of the web series. Netflix responded by saying it would add new opening disclaimers to include the real and code names of the hijackers. However, some viewers outside India reported that this disclaimer was missing in version shown outside of India and was only present in the Indian version of it.

External links

• IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack at IMDb
• IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack on Netflix