The controversy over the names of terrorists in the film ‘IC 814: The Kandhar Hijack’, based on the 1999 plane hijacking incident, is increasing. Now the Bharatiya Janata Party has also entered this controversy. The party alleges that filmmaker Anubhav Sinha has deliberately tried to hide the Muslim identity of the terrorists by using Hindu names. Apart from this, a demand for boycott of the film is also being made on social media.
Five terrorists hijacked the IC 814 aircraft during a flight from Kathmandu to Delhi on 24 December 1999. The names of the terrorists were Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhtar and Saeed Shakir.
what did bjp say
BJP IT cell chief Amil Malviya said, ‘The IC-814 hijackers were dreaded terrorists who used different names to hide their Muslim identity. Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha has legitimized their criminal intentions by promoting non-Muslim names. What will be the result of this? After decades, people will think that Hindus had hijacked IC-814.’
He further wrote, ‘The Left’s agenda of hiding the crimes of Pakistani terrorists has been accomplished. This is the power of cinema, which the Left has been using since the 70s. Perhaps even before that. It will not only question or weaken India’s security system, but will also shift the blame away from those who are responsible for this bloodshed.’
what are the names
The names of the terrorists in this series are Bhola, Shankar, Doctor, Burger and Chief. It is shown in the series that the terrorists had code names. However, the terrorists who hijackered the plane were from Pakistan. The film stars Naseeruddin Shah, Dia Mirza, Arvind Swami, Vijay Verma, Pankaj Kapoor in lead roles.
According to the Foreign Ministry, the names of the hijackers were Ibrahim Athar of Bahawalpur, Shahid Akhtar Saeed of Karachi, Sunny Ahmed Kazmi of Karachi, Mistry Zahoor Ibrahim of Karachi and Shakir of Sukkur City. The Foreign Ministry has said, ‘…these hijackers are known by the names Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola and Shankar, with the help of which these hijackers were addressing each other.’
Casting director gave clarification
Casting director Mukesh Chhabra on Sunday claimed that the criminals used fake names for each other and research was done for the show. “I have been reading a lot of tweets about the names of the kidnappers. We did proper research. They used to call each other by those names (nicknames or fake names). Whatever you want to call them,” he said. The film is directed by Anubhav Sinha.