IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack debuted on Netflix on August 29 where it received ostentatious commercial praise from both critics and audience perspectives. However, as time went by, a certain segment of the viewers voiced their displeasure on the hijacker’s code names which had been shown in the film. The concern was that under those names, the viewer might generate a stereotype of the terrorists being of a particular community or ethnic group whereas in fact it wasn’t so. A couple of them also noticed the words used as code names of the hijackers in the web series were also on the webpage of the Ministry of External Affairs India, which was quite surprising. Nevertheless, other issues related to the same, or rather similar categories of issues, appeared.
On September 3 Netflix content head Monika Shergill attended a meeting on this subject in the office of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in Delhi. On the same day in the city of Mumbai in which this movie was produced a press conference took place assisted by the whole team of IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack.
As a prologue, the emcee of the event came forward and read out the official statement released by Netflix in connection with the present controversy. Reposing the paper the host said further, “This is the only official statement issued on these matters. There are many reports on this issue in the internet and I would like to request the respectable members of the press to please refer this statement only.”
The narration continues, “For the interest of those audiences who may not know about the hijacking episode of the Indian Airlines IC 814 in the year 1999, the prologue disclaimer has been revised to include the actual and codified names of the hijackers. Real-life code names are used in the series as these were used in the real operation. Storytelling is an integral part of the culture in India and hence we will tell such stories and they will be told as they are.”
After they finished reading it, the show’s team, including actors Vijay Varma, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Dia Mirza, Kumud Mishra, Patralekhaa, Manoj Pahwa as well as director Anubhav Sinha and others went up to the platform to get this event further.
