Anubhav Sinha’s directorial, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, arrived on Netflix this week. The series was much-awaited because of its intriguing backdrop. The show is set against the backdrop of the hijacking of the Katmandu-Delhi flight in 1999. The series received good reviews from the critics, and the majority of the reviewers felt that the performances from the cast were spectacular. The series stars Vijay Varma as the real-life Captain Devi Sharan. However, the audience’s reaction to the series is not that unanimous.
The web series is facing a huge backlash by the netizens. IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’s story focuses on the hardships that the crew and passengers faced during the eight days of hijack and how the Indian government had to negotiate with the terrorists/hijackers who demanded the release of notorious prisoners in exchange for the lives of passengers. The show is being heavily criticized on social media for its soft portrayal of terrorists. In the show, two of the terrorists are called Bhola and Shankar, which did not go well with the majority of the netizens. They called for a boycott of this series, and some even said it was a Hinduphobic series. However, the other side of the story is that the real hijackers used the same names mentioned above to hide their actual identity or name.
Mukesh Chabra, who was the casting director of IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, defended it and stated that the team had done proper research before making the series. Some netixzens came forward and supported the series by posting the screenshots, which prove that indeed the real hijackers had hidden their original names and called two of them Bhola and Shankar.
