"Discovered that my father was on that flight": EAM Jaishankar recalls 1984 flight hijack

Geneva [Switzerland], September 13 (ANI): External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday spoke about the 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' Netflix web series and revealed that his father was a passenger on a flight hijacked in 1984, and notably, Jaishankar himself was part of the team that handled the crisis.

The remarks by Jaishankar came while he was interacting with the Indian community in Geneva.

He said, "I haven't seen the film, so I don't want to comment. But I tell you something interesting which you may remember. In 1984, there was a hijack... I was a very young officer. I was part of the team that was dealing with it. After 3-4 hours of the hijacking, I rang up my mother to tell her that I can't come, there's a hijacking. I discovered that my father was on that flight. The flight ended up in Dubai. Fortunately, nobody got killed but it could have ended up wrongly."

The EAM further called the incident "interesting," and said that on the one hand, he was part of the official team working to resolve the crisis, while on the other hand, he was also part of the affected families who were pressing the government for action. "It was interesting because on one hand, I was part of that team which was working on the hijacking and on the other hand, I was part of the family members who were pressing the government on hijacking...," Jaishankar said.

Notably, the 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack' series, is based on the true story of the 1999 hijacking of the IC 814 Indian Airlines flight. The six-episode series is based on the events of December 24, 1999, when an Indian Airlines flight IC 814 en route to Delhi from Kathmandu was hijacked after taking off from the Kathmandu Tribhuvan International Airport in Nepal shortly after it entered Indian airspace.

Meanwhile, the PIL seeking direction to ban Netflix's series "IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack" was withdrawn from the Delhi High Court on September 6. The petitioner, through counsel, stated that Netflix's addition of a disclaimer clarifies the real names of the terrorists involved in the hijacking and addresses the concerns raised in the PIL.

Recently, the PIL was moved by Surjit Singh Yadav, Chief of Hindu Sena, to seek a ban on Netflix's series, namely "IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack." The PIL alleged that the series distorts the actual identities of the terrorists involved in the hijacking.

The petitioner through Advocate Shashi Ranjan has approched the court against the television miniseries "IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack," directed by Anubhav Sinha, citing inaccuracies in its portrayal of the 1999 hijacking of Indian Flight 814.

The petition claimed that the miniseries erroneously assigns Hindu names such as "Bhola" and "Shankar"--names associated with Lord Shiva--to the real hijackers Ibrahim Akhtar, Shahid Akhtar Sayeed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Mistry, and Shakir. (ANI)