Netflix India's head of content summoned over 'IC 814' row
PTC News Desk: The government has summoned Netflix India's content chief amid the major controversy surrounding 'IC 814', a web series on the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight by Pakistan-based terror outfit Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, according to reports.
The summons from the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry comes after hundreds of social media users accused the creators of the web series of deliberately changing the hijackers' names to "Bhola" and "Shankar". Anubhav Sinha directed the web series, which is based on the book 'Flight Into Fear: The Captain's Story' by Devi Sharan, the flight's captain, and journalist Srinjoy Chowdhury.
The web series documented the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 on December 24, 1999. The plane, with 191 passengers, took off from Nepal's Kathmandu and was bound for Delhi. Shortly after takeoff, five hijackers acting as passengers took control of the jet. It later made many landings in Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai before being taken to Kandahar, Afghanistan.
To guarantee the hostages' release, the government, then led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was forced to free three infamous terrorists from Indian prisons: Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar. According to reports, Taliban authorities helped the hijackers and the released terrorists in reaching Pakistan.
According to a statement issued by the Union Home Ministry on January 6, 2000, the hijackers were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, and Shakir.
"To the passengers of the hijacked place these hijackers came to be known respectively as (1) Chief, (2) Doctor, (3) Burger, (4) Bhola and (5) Shankar, the names by which the hijackers invariably addressed one another," the Home Ministry added.
- PTC NEWS
