‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ director Anubhav Sinha: ‘An accessible thriller with layering’
The six-episode Hindi limited series will be premiered on Netflix on August 29.
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A new streaming series revisits a terrorist attack from 25 years ago that ballooned into a diplomatic crisis. IC 184: The Kandahar Hijack looks back on an Indian Airlines flight that was commandered by Islamists in 1999. Directed by Anubhav Sinha and written by him and Trishant Srivastava, the show will be premiered on Netflix on August 29.
The six-episode limited series explores the ordeal of the crew and passengers as well as the Indian government’s response. IC 814 took off for Delhi from Kathmandu on December 24, 1999. Five terrorists hijacked the plane and eventually landed in Kandahar in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
The standoff – during which a passenger died – ended on December 30 after the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government freed three jailed terrorists. They included Masood Azhar, whose outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed carried out the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, and Omar Saaed Shaikh, accused of beheading American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.
Anubhav Sinha’s attempt with IC 184: The Kandahar Hijack, he said in an interview with Scroll, was to deliver an “accessible thriller” while stringing together various strands. Controversies surrounded the actions of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh was roundly criticised for capitulating to the hijackers’ demands and even accompanying the liberated terrorists to Kandahar.
Sinha wasn’t...
