The Hindu Sena has filed a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the Delhi High Court, demanding ban on Netflix show, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, over concealing the real identities of the hijackers.
In the petition, Hindu Sena President Surjit Singh Yadav urged the court to direct the Centre and the Maharashtra government to revoke the censor board certificate for the show and ban it.
The petitioner has claimed that the Netflix show erroneously portrays the terrorists as Hindus, giving them names like Bhola and Shankar, which are the names of Lord Shiva. The PIL claimed that this has hurt Hindu sentiments.
It claimed that the "distortion of crucial facts" about the real identities of the terrorists has misrepresented the historical events and created stereotypes and misinformation. The plea said this requires court's interference to prevent further misunderstanding and harm.
The Centre has summoned the Neflix India head of content on Tuesday, seeking clarification on the issue and told the representatives of the OTT giant to keep the religious sentiments of the public in mind. Though the Centre has not sought a ban on the show, it has asked Netflix to find a means to resolve the controversy.
Earlier, social media users slammed the makers on X, with hastags like #BoycottNetflix and #BoycottBollywood. Responding to the allegations, casting director Mukesh Chhabra said the makers did proper research for the show and the terrorists had actually used nicknames to address each other during the 1999 hijacking.
IC 814: Kandahar Hijack dramatises the real-life hijacking of the Delhi-bound IC-814 flight from Kathmandu on December 24, 1999. The hijackers were Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter, and Sayed Shakir. However, they are not referred to by their real names in the series. Along with Bhola and Shankar, the hijackers addressed each other with names like Chief, Doctor and Burger.
The hijacked flight was forced to fly to Amritsar, Lahore and eventually landed in Dubai, where they released 27 of the 176 passengers. However, one of the hostages was fatally stabbed and several others were injured. The remaining people were released only after the AB Vajpayee government released infamous terrorists Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar.
The Netflix show, directed by Anubhav Sinha, is written by Adrian Levy and Trishant Srivastava. The cast includes Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Vijay Varma, Dia Mirza and Arvind Swamy.
The show draws its inspitation from the book, Flight Into Fear: The Captain's Story. It was authored by journalist Srinjoy Chowdhury and Devi Sharan, the captain of the flight hijacked by terrorists belonging to Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.