IC 814 ‘name-change' row: Govt summons Netflix India's content head, report says

The Netflix series is based on the hijack of the Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi in December 1999.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has summoned Netflix India's Head of Content amid row over the series ‘IC 814’ in which the makers ‘changed names’ of terrorists who hijacked the Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi in December 1999. news agency ANI reported on Monday.

A still from the Anubhav Sinha-directed Netflix series (Courtesy: Netflix)

The development came amid trend on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) calling for a boycott of the series, which depicts the week-long hijacking that resulted in the Government of India releasing three jailed Pakistani terrorists, including Masood Azhar, in exchange for the passengers.

The five who hijacked the aircraft were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, and Shakir. However, the series uses Hindu names like ‘Shankar’ and ‘Bhola,’ and names such as ‘Chief,' ‘Doctor’, and ‘Burger.’

Journalist Neelesh Misra, who wrote the book on which the Netflix project is based, and Mukesh Chhabra, the show's casting director, have both stated that these were nicknames used by the hijackers for each other.

Misra also said that he hopes that the makers have mentioned the real names of the hijackers.

Directed by Anubhav Sinha, IC 814 features an ensemble cast led by Vijay Verma, who plays Captain Devi Sharan, the senior of the two pilots on the Indian Airlines flight that took off from Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport for Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport on December 24, 1999. The terrorists took control of the flight within minutes of take-off.

They forced the Captain to take the plane to several places, before it finally landed in Afghanistan's Kandahar, where the hijacking finally ended with the terrorists-passengers swap.