Hindu Sena files petition in Delhi High Court to ban ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ web series

Case of hurting Hindu sentiments in a Netflix web series

(A web series means a series of videos broadcast online)

Mumbai – A public interest litigation has been filed to ban the recently released web series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ on the OTT platform ‘Netflix’.

In the petition filed by the ‘Hindu Sena,’ it is alleged that the series has tampered with facts and changed the names of the Islamic terrorists who hijacked the plane. The petition further claims that the web series has hurt the sentiments of Hindus.

The petition demands that the Censor Board de-certify the web series and ban its telecast. (This is a technical error in the petition. The OTT platform does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Censor Board. It is the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Union Government that should attempt to ban this series – Editor). Surjit Singh Yadav of Hindu Sena has filed this petition.

What is the matter ?

On December 24th 1999, Pakistani terrorists hijacked an Indian Airlines flight after it took off from Kathmandu. This incident has been portrayed in the web series. The Jihadi terrorists who hijacked the plane were identified as Ibrahim Athar (Bahawalpur), Shahid Akhtar (Karachi), Sunny Ahmed (Karachi), Zahoor Mistry (Karachi), and Shakir (Sukkur City). However, in the web series, the names of two terrorists have been changed to ‘Bhola’ and ‘Shankar’. This has sparked calls for a boycott of the series, which is accused of completely distorting the incident and insulting Hindu Dharma through this medium.

Recently, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued a summons to Netflix’s ‘Content Head’ regarding the identity changes in the series. The web series, directed by Anubhav Sinha, was released on Netflix on August 29th.

Netflix series #IC814 by Anubhav Sinha tries to obfuscate facts of the hijacking. Few points:

1. Series doesn’t reveal at any point real names of Shankar and Bhola (Codenames) who were Pakistani Islamist terrorists.

2. Series gives clean chit to Pakistan and ISI. Pinning blame… pic.twitter.com/F4MEGBQHRL

— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) September 2, 2024