Pressure to convert to Islam, donations sought for Afghanistan… The story of IC 814 hijacking that Bollywood will not tell!

New Delhi: There is a ruckus over the recently released webseries ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ on Netflix. This series has been accused of showing Hindu names of terrorists. This webseries is based on the incident of hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC 814 in 1999. This flight going from Kathmandu to Delhi was hijacked by 5 terrorists and kept in Kandahar in Taliban-occupied Afghanistan. The hijackers also forced the passengers to accept Islam. This revelation has been made by a passenger traveling in that flight. Not only this, the most cruel among the terrorists was Shakir, who slit the throat of a passenger Rupin Katyal. The terrorist told the passengers that Muslim religion is better than Hinduism, so they should accept it.

The terrorists pressured the passengers to convert to Islam

One of the five terrorists who hijacked the flight was Shakir, codenamed ‘Doctor’. Shakir slit the throat of newlywed Rupin Katyal, who was returning from his/her honeymoon in Nepal. India Today quoted Pooja Kataria, one of the passengers on the flight, as making some shocking revelations. She said that Shakir tried to convert the stranded passengers on IC 814 to Kandahar. Rupin and Rachna Katyal were not the only ones returning from their honeymoon in Nepal, there were 26 other couples on the plane. Pooja Kataria and her husband, Rakesh, were also travelling on the flight. Recalling the incident, Pooja Kataria, a resident of Chandigarh, said that Shakir seemed very educated. he/she gave several speeches on the flight, asking the passengers to accept Islam. he/she said that Islam is a very good religion, better than Hinduism. Another passenger on IC 814 confirmed the speeches given by Shakir.

Donations sought for poor Afghanistan

Apart from converting to Islam, the hijackers asked for donations from the passengers of the flight. The terrorists said that poor Afghanistan needed their financial help. On the behest of the terrorists, the passengers collected money and handed over 85 thousand rupees to help war-torn Afghanistan. According to the records of the Home Ministry, all five hijackers of IC 814 were Pakistanis. They must have tried to mislead the passengers by taking the name of Taliban and Afghanistan and asked for money. Pooja Kataria further told that these were also some unheard stories of the 1999 Kandahar hijack, which were not mentioned in Anubhav Sinha’s ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’.

Why is there a ruckus over the IC 814 series?

IC 814 webseries directed by director Anubhav Sinha is in controversy. There is a ruckus over the names of terrorists in this webseries. In the series, the names of the terrorists are said to be ‘Chief’, ‘Doctor’, ‘Shankar’, ‘Bhola’ and ‘Burger’, which were actually their code names. According to government records, the real names of these terrorists were Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Saeed, Gulshan Iqbal, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Defense Area, Mistry Zahoor Ibrahim, Akhtar Colony and Shakir. All these terrorists were from Pakistan. After the protest, the government has summoned the India head of Netflix.

Were these incidents cleverly hidden?

After the controversy over the names of the terrorists, it has now been revealed that they tried to convert people and asked for donations for Afghanistan. These incidents have not been shown in the entire series. In such a situation, it is natural to raise questions on the filmmakers. After all, how did they do research for the webseries or did the makers deliberately hide these incidents. The good behavior of the terrorists has been shown in the series, but the passengers’ side was missing.