Netflix to review 'objectionable' portions of IC814; to be sensitive going forward

New Delhi: In a meeting with the officials of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) on Tuesday, Netflix India Content Head Monika Shergill promised to review the ‘objectionable’ portions of its latest web series ‘IC814’.

The platform also assured the govt that it will be sensitive going forward, sources said.

A massive controversy surrounding 'IC 814', a web series on the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight by Pakistan-based terror outfit Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, erupted on Monday for allegedly hiding the real identities of the terrorists involved in the 1999 incident.

Amid demands by a section of social media users for boycott of the series "IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack" for allegedly hiding the real identities of the terrorists involved in the 1999 incident, casting director Mukesh Chhabra on Sunday claimed the perpetrators used nicknames for each other and proper research was done for the show.

Directed by Anubhav Sinha, the series is based on the 1999 hijack of an Indian aircraft by five terrorists on December 24, 1999, 40 minutes after it took off from Kathmandu. It started streaming on Netflix from August 29.

Using hashtags #BoycottNetflix, #BoycottBollywood and #IC814, many X users shared posts claiming the makers changed the names of the hijackers to 'Shankar' and 'Bhola' to allegedly protect the terrorists who belonged to a certain community.

Chhabra, a prominent casting director in the industry, said the terrorists used "nicknames or fake names" to address each other.

"I am reading so many tweets about the names of the hijackers. We did the proper research. They used to call each other by those names—nicknames or fake names, whatever you want to call them." "And thank you, everyone, for loving the ensemble cast. A big thank you to my team, and especially to Anubhav Sinha for trusting us and giving me the freedom to explore. #IC814 #Netflix," he wrote on X.

Five terrorists Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter and Sayed Shakir hijacked the IC-814 plane during its flight from Kathmandu to Delhi on December 24 that year.

At least 154 passengers and crew were held hostage for eight days and the stand-off ended when hardcore terrorists Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar were released and the then external affairs minister Jaswant Singh took them on a special plane to Kandahar.

"IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack" features an ensemble cast of Vijay Varma, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra, Arvind Swamy, Dia Mirza and Patralekhaa, among others.