'My Father Was On A Hijacked Flight': Jaishankar Looks Back Amid Debate Over Netflix's IC814 Show

External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar on Friday shared a shocking anecdote about the hijacking of 1984 Indian Airlines flight IC421 in which his father was also onboard.

While addressing the Indian diaspora in Switzerland’s Geneva, the union minister commented on the ongoing controversy over the Netflix series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ in which the names of the terrorists who hijacked the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 (Kathmandu-Delhi) in 1999 have been modified, saying that movie guys don’t make the government look good, but the hero is supposed to look good.

While narrating the incident, Jaishankar said that as being a young officer, on one end, he was working on to tackle the hijack situation, and on the other, he was with the family members who were pressing the government on hijacking.

“In 1984 there was a hijacking. I was a young officer and part of team 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. It was interesting because on one hand, I was part of team working on hijacking and on other hand, I was part of the family members who were pressing the government on hijacking,” he said.

What happened in 1984?

On August 24, 1984, the Indian Airlines Flight 421 took-off from Delhi Airport for Srinagar, via Chandigarh and Jammu. As the flight landed in Chandigarh, seven hijackers, affiliated to the outlawed All India Sikh Students Federation, all in their teens or early twenties, stormed into the cockpit of Boeing 737-2A8 aircraft.

The Khalistan terrorists hijacked the flight to seek the release of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale among others. They also demanded to be flown to the United States

Lasting 36 hours, the Boeing jet shuttled between at least four different airports. The flight was taken from Pathankot to Lahore, then to Karachi and finally to Dubai. After more than 36 hours, 12 pro-Khalistani hijackers surrendered to authorities and released all 68 passengers and six crew members unharmed.

Jaishankar’s father and Indian civil servant K Subrahmanyam was on board the hijacked flight. Subrahmanyam, an IAS officer is regarded as one of India’s most reputed strategic thinkers, and a towering authority on geopolitics who enjoyed the confidence of several Prime Ministers, including Indira Gandhi.

The IC 421 hijacking, which took place four decades ago, isn’t as fresh in public memory as the hijacking of IC 814. This is despite the fact that the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane in 1984 was marked by a dramatic and tense sequence of events one after another, airport after airport.

WHAT’S THE CONTROVERSY?

IC-814 The Kandahar Hijack, which features Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Vijay Varma, Dia Mirza, Arvind Swamy and Dia Mirza has been well-received by critics. However, a section of social media users has demanded for the boycott of the series for allegedly hiding the real identities of the terrorists involved in the 1999 incident.

In the series, the terrorists have been named Bhola, Shankar, Doctor, Burger and Chief. The series seemingly hinted that the terrorists had codenames. However, the hijackers were Muslims from Pakistan. This has irked many, who have called it “whitewashing”.

Following the backlash, Netflix agreed to update the disclaimer of the series and mention the real names of the hijackers. The decision came after officials of the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry met Netflix representatives over the alleged misrepresentation of facts in the new series.

1999 KANDAHAR HIJACK

On December 24, 1999, five masked men hijacked the aircraft — IC 814 — 40 minutes after it took off from the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, bound for New Delhi. The hijackers forced the captain of the flight to fly the plane into Pakistani airspace, where he did not receive clearance to land. The plane then landed in Amritsar, with barely 10 minutes’ worth of fuel left.

After refuelling the plane, the hijackers forced the pilot to fly the plane to Lahore, where the pilot made a desperate landing despite not getting permission from Pakistan’s ATC, which turned off all lights and navigational aids at the airport. But at the last moment, they were given permission and it was here that they refuelled and made their way to Dubai. After being denied permission, the flight landed at the Al Minhad Air Base in the UAE. The hijackers released 27 of the 176 passengers on board, including the body of 25-year-old Rupin Katyal, who had been fatally stabbed by the captors.

After this, the plane finally landed in the hijackers’ original destination, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan’s Kandahar airport. It was here that the hijackers negotiated with the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, which eventually ended on December 30 with the release of all the hostages for three terrorists — Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, Masood Azhar, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar.