Govt Summons Netflix India Content Head Over IC 814 Web Series Row

Fresh out of a social media storm for its feature film ‘Maharaj’, OTT platform Netflix has found itself again in the middle of a controversy over its recently released web series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’. 

According to a report by ANI, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has summoned Netflix content head Monika Shergill to seek explanation on the alleged deviation from the original incident upon which the series is based. 

The Anubhav Sinha directed series recounts the trials and tribulations of the crew and passengers during the hijack of an Indian Airlines flight back in 1999 and also delves into the government’s response to the demands posed by the five hijackers of the flights.

The series named the hijackers as Chief, Doctor, Burger, Bhola and Shankar. The naming of the last two hijackers ruffled some feathers of social media buzzers, who allege that the makers’ intentionally changed these Hindu names to hurt public sentiments. 

“The hijackers of IC-814 were dreaded terrorists, who acquired aliases to hide their Muslim identities. Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha, legitimised their criminal intent, by furthering their non-Muslim names,” BJP’s national convener of the IT cell Amit Malviya said in a post. 

The Netflix series is inspired from Commander of IC 814’s Captain Devi Sharan book titled ‘Flight into Fear – A Captain’s Story’. 

The real life incident involved the hijack and subsequent kidnapping of 154 passengers of Indian Airlines for eight days in 1999.  The hijack was  carried out by five terrorists named:  Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter, and Sayed Shakir.

In an interview, casting director Mukesh Chhabra said that the perpetrators used nicknames among themselves and that extensive research was carried out for the show.

“This series is a work of fiction which is set against the backdrop of certain real life events. The characters, places, names and events in the series have been creatively conceptualised for the purpose of dramatisation,” the show’s opening credits read. 

This is the second time this year Netflix is facing public outcry, the first being over its film ‘Maharaj’ in June. At that time, the OTT platform saw users calling for bans of the film as well as the platform over allegations of the movie portraying “Hindu saints in negative light”. 

While the release of the film was put on hold post resolution, it was subsequently released later in the month. 

Meanwhile, Netflix titles like ‘Railway Men’ and ‘Sacred Games’ saw similar opposition over the past years. Yet, Indian shows and movies clocked more than 1 Bn (100 Cr) views on the streaming platform between July and December 2023. 

The growing tensions faced by Netflix comes amid the Indian OTT waiting on the entrance of a major entity post the amalgamation of Reliance’s JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar. The combined entity will house more than 120 television channels and will reportedly garner a user base of more than 750 Mn.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) have greenlit the merger deal between Reliance-owned Viacom18 and Disney India late last month.