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Netflix IC-814 Kandahar Hijack Web Series, Bhola Shankar Terrorists Names, Pooja Kataria Suvivor

Posted on by Dsen .N

New Delhi:

The new Netflix series “IC-814 Kandahar Hijack” — about the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 by Pakistani terrorists — “is based on true events and the names (of the hijackers, which led to a dispute over historical accuracy) are real,” said Pooja Kataria, one of the 189 people held hostage.

She urged people to treat the show as entertainment rather than controversy.

“I don’t know why people are making a controversy… it is based on a real incident and the names were also real,” she told news agency ANI on Wednesday, indicating that she had been treated well. “One hijacker, called ‘Burger’, celebrated my birthday and gave me his shawl. Another, ‘Doctor’, gave speeches on Islam while we were on the plane and seemed to be an intelligent man.”

“We were returning from Nepal when the plane was hijacked. There were 176 passengers on board… there were five hijackers. We were all scared and had no idea what was happening. We were not given anything to eat except a small apple,” Ms Kataria said of the hostage situation, which was resolved after the then Indian government was forced to exchange three terrorists.

Pooja Kataria’s comments come after a heated row over Netflix’s use of two terrorist codenames — “Bhola” and “Shankar.” Critics have accused the OTT giant of distorting facts, misrepresenting the identities of the terrorists — named by the Home Ministry in 2000 as Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim and Shakir — and hurting Hindu sentiments.

NDTV explains | Controversy Surrounds Netflix Series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’

The ministry also noted that during the hijacking of the plane, the terrorists referred to each other only by nicknames. Two of them were “Bhola” and “Shankar”, the others were “boss”, “doctor” and “burger”.

READ | ‘Nobody Has the Right to…’: Why Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Was Called Out

However, as the dispute over terrorist code and real names heated up, the government summoned Netflix senior executive Monica Shergill and said that “no one has the right to toy with people’s sentiments.” The company later updated the initial disclaimer to include real and codename names.

READ | ‘Codenames on Shows Reflect…’: Netflix on ‘IC 814’ Web Series Dispute

Ms Kataria is not the only former hostage to speak out on the show.

Anil Sharma, who was a steward on the plane, spoke to news agency IANS but had a different take on the matter. He said some scenes in the web series were fictional and the names ‘Bhola’ and ‘Shankar’ were “imaginary… and not their (terrorists’) real names”.

“The intentions of the creators of the web series seemed to me not to be the best,” he said.

The Netflix series is inspired by the events aboard the IC-814 and on the ground in Kandahar and Delhi, as well as the book “Flight Into Fear: The Captain’s Story” by Devi Sharan, the plane’s captain.

Naseeruddin Shah and Pankaj Kapur play key roles.

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