IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack: Photos of REAL Negotiators of the Terror Attack Go Viral; See Here

IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack premiered over the weekend and has grabbed eyeballs for various reasons. On one side, a social media section has been lauding the performances. On the other, the series is also facing boycott calls. Amid these divided reactions, real photos of the team defusing the hijack situation have surfaced online. The negotiations were carried out by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led Indian government.

Vivek Katju, the Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, led the team of negotiation. He was joined by Home Ministry official Ajit Doval and CD Sahay from the Cabinet Secretariat. Ajit Doval was the then Intelligence Bureau (IB) Chief. He was also a key member of the negotiating team. Today, he is the National Security Advisor (NSA) of India. The negotiating team also featured Brajesh Mishra — Former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India, Prabhat Kumar — The Crisis Management Group of the Indian Government, led by Union Secretary,

Check out the photos below:

In the series, Anubhav Sinha roped in Pankaj Kapur, Naseeruddin Shah, Arvind Swamy, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra and Aditya Srivastava to play the members of the negotiation team.

For the unversed, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack is based on the hijack of an India-bound flight in December 1999. The flight took off from Kathmandu and was headed to New Delhi when it was hijacked. The passengers of the flight were held hostage for seven days. The hijackers demanded the release three high-profile militants: Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar. The negotiations resulted in the release of the three militants in exchange of the release of the hostages. There was one fatality in the hijack.

While the series depicts the events, many criticised director Anubhav Sinha for taking creative liberty with the regard to the names of the terrorists. Using hashtags #BoycottNetflix, #BoycottBollywood and #IC814, many X users shared posts claiming the makers changed the names of the hijackers to ‘Shankar’ and ‘Bhola’ to allegedly protect the terrorists who belonged to a certain community.

Anubhav Sinha is yet to issue a statement on the boycott calls. Meanwhile, top sources said a Netflix representative was summoned to New Delhi on September 2, over the backlash the series is facing.