'My father was on hijacked plane in 1984': What Jaishankar did next as officer?

S Jaishankar recounted his role in 1984 plane hijacking negotiations, revealing his father was on the flight.

External affairs minister S Jaishankar revealed on Friday that he was involved in the negotiations during a plane hijacking in 1984, and that his father, a prominent Indian civil servant, was aboard the plane taken to Dubai.

Jaishankar was part of IC814 hijacking crisis team, father on board during incident.

'I called my mother…': Jaishankar recalls 1984 hijacking

Jaishankar, who was a young government officer at the time, was involved in managing the crisis and only later discovered his father Krishnaswamy Subrahmanyam was on the flight. Speaking about the Netflix series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, EAM commented, “I haven't seen the film, so I don't want to comment. In 1984, as a young officer, I was part of the team dealing with the hijacking. After a few hours, I called my mother to explain that I couldn’t come home due to the hijacking, only to find out that my father was on the flight,” ANI reported.

"It was interesting because, on the one hand, I was part of the team which was working on the hijacking. On the other hand, I was part of the family members who were pressing the government on the hijacking," Jaishankar recalled in a speech in Geneva, Switzerland.

Jaishankar was born to K Subrahmanyam, a prominent international strategic affairs analyst and journalist, and Sulochana Subrahmanyam.

On August 24, 1984, an Indian Airlines flight from Delhi to Srinagar was hijacked over Pathankot and taken to Dubai. After 36 hours, 12 pro-Khalistani hijackers surrendered, releasing all 68 passengers and six crew members unharmed.

IC814: The Kandahar Hijack sparks controversey

Plane hijacking has become a hot topic following the release of Anubhav Sinha's Netflix series, IC814: The Kandahar Hijack. The series has sparked controversy, with critics accusing the filmmaker of changing the names of the hijackers to 'Shankar' and 'Bhola' to allegedly shield terrorists from a specific community.

The actual hijackers were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny, Ahmad Qazi, Zahoor Mistry, and Shakir. The series, however, used the code names adopted by the hijackers, such as 'Bhola', 'Shankar', 'Doctor', 'Burger', and 'Chief'. In response to the backlash, Netflix India modified the webseries' disclaimer and included both the real and code names of the hijackers.