IC814 Review: Must watch series for every Indian to know about the longest hijack of Indian history
IC814 Web Series Rating: 4 Stars
Watched IC814 Web Series on Netflix. So, let’s analyze the cast, release date, story, positive/negatives and at last my personal view on this web series.
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Arvind Swamy, Vijay Varma, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Aditya Srivastava, Yashpal Sharma, Kanwaljit Singh, Dia Mirza, Amrita Puri, Patralekhaa, Sushant Singh, Pooja Gor and Anupam Tripathi
Director: Anubhav Sinha
Release Date: 29th August 2024 on Netflix
Duration: 6 Episodes/ 40 Minutes
Story: Series is based on the Flight Into Fear: The Captain’s Story book by Captain Devi Sharan and journalist Srinjoy Chowdhury which opens with Ram (Anupam Tripathi), a RAW spy in Kathmandu gathering Intel on a possible Hijack of IC-814 flight from Kathmandu to Delhi. Ram tries to warn IB (Intelligence Bureau), CC’es everyone on the mail but no one pays heed to it.
On 24th December 1999, at Christmas eve and around 4.05 pm, Indian Airlines’ flight takes off from Kathmandu airport with 178 passengers and 11 crew on board, including Captain Sharan Dev (Vijay Verma) with two senior air-hostesses Indrani (Patralekhaa Paul) and Chhaya (Additi Gupta Chopra).
A few minutes later, five men, brandishing guns and grenades barge into the cockpit and hijack the plane. They were referred to as Chief (Rajiv Thakur), Doctor (Harminder Singh), Burger (Dil John) and two others Shankar and Bhola.
They hijacked the plane, and news reaches Delhi and the country’s top intelligence officers and bureaucrats get into a huddle to monitor and manage the crisis. There’s external affairs minister Vijaybhan Singh (Pankaj Kapur), MEA secretary DRS (Arvind Swami), Cabinet secretary Vinay Kaul (Naseeruddin Shah), IB associate director Mukul Mohan (Manoj Pahwa), RAW chief V.K. Agarwal (Aditya Srivastava) and his senior officer Ranjan Mishra (Kumud Mishra) among others.
There are no demands yet, but the hijackers want to take the plane to Kabul. Since there isn’t enough fuel, almost three hours after taking off from Kathmandu, the plane lands at Amritsar airport for refueling. What transpires here is, perhaps, the most tragic display of India’s political stasis.
As the pilot, with a gun to his head, begs for fuel, he is repeatedly told that the bowser is on its way. Passengers and crew pray, waiting to be rescued, and Punjab Police commandos have a plan and are waiting for a go-ahead to launch the rescue operation. But for 49 minutes, the only instruction that comes from Delhi is not to refuel the plane. Inside the plane, with rising tension and no fuel, hijackers stab two passengers and the plane takes off.
To give us simultaneous, live dispatches, the series flits between several places. We are with the crisis management group in Delhi which is trying to figure out who is to blame and who can help. We watch the foreign minister lean on Islamabad, Dubai and America to intervene, and the foreign secretary as he tries to establish contact with Afghanistan’s Taliban government. The IB additional director, however, is repeatedly talking of shooting and not arresting terrorists.
We are in the cockpit where the pilot is trying his best to save the passengers, while distraught passengers are being made to sit with their heads down. We watch family members grieving and demanding the return of their loved ones; while in Nepal, we run after the RAW operative who is trying to find out the contents of a mysterious bag that’s on board. We also visit a jail cell where Maulana Masood Azhar is being questioned and watch a feisty newspaper reporter Neha (Amrita Puri) who has all the dope and files sensational stories, but editor Shalini (Dia Mirza) insists on restraint.
After a brief refueling stop in Lahore, the plane heads for Dubai where 26 hostages with some women and children are allowed to deplane, and the body of Rupin Katyal is dropped on the tarmac before the plane takes off again. In Kandahar, soon after the plane is escorted by a biker to a parking spot on the tarmac and is then surrounded by armed gunmen, Indian negotiators arrive and begin talking to the hijackers. Their demands are humiliating even to consider. As negotiations drag on, passengers and crew learn to live with the unbearable stench rising from the toilets which are clogged and overflowing with human excreta. How they finally reach to Delhi is all about this series.
Positives
1. Performances
2. Story
3. Climax
4. Screenplay
5. Direction
6. Cinematography
Negatives
1. Length
2. Pacing Issue
Durgesh Tiwary’s View: When I watched the trailer of this web-series, planned to watch this series on premiere day as loved the trailer and its based on true incidents of plane hijacked that happened 25 years ago.
The mini-series is inspired by actual events and Captain Devi Sharan and Srinjoy Chowdhury’s book Flight into Fear. It follows the Indian Airlines flight, IC 814, hijacked on 24 December 1999 enroute Kathmandu-Delhi, diverting to Kandahar.
IC814: The Kandahar Hijack series explores the incident from multiple perspectives, intertwining the stories of the passengers, their families, the Indian government, and the hijackers. Sinha, known for his nuanced handling of socio-political themes, has crafted a gripping narrative that balances historical accuracy with dramatic storytelling. The Kandahar hijacking exposed how the then coalition government, led by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, which had just a year ago flexed its muscle with the Pokhran nuclear tests, floundered and was ineffective when it came to making decisions to save lives. The series has cleverly framed shots that make us feel as if we are present on the site, but with a partial view of what is going on. It also keeps you on the edge of your seat, building tension as the plane faces dangerous situations, such as flying at dangerously low altitudes due to a lack of fuel or making an emergency landing in Amristar. The unsanitary conditions that passengers had to endure for eight days will make your stomach turn. There are many things to appreciate about the show like it trying to give a little perspective on the geo-politics then, with short preludes at regular intervals or it seamlessly adding real life footage in the ongoing drama for a very realistic feel. Not to forget, there is an extremely talented ensemble cast. While not everyone has extensive screen time, this perfectly synchronized cast delivers their best in every moment they have.
The series also subtly comments on the grey areas of journalism. For journalists, distinguishing between what is right and wrong, and deciding what information to withhold or disclose, becomes extremely challenging in the quest to get to the root of a story and bring out the whole truth to the readers. When national security is at stake, determining when and how much of the truth should be revealed becomes crucial. The terrorists-for-hostages deal struck marked a deeply embarrassing defeat for India especially because the terrorists who were released from Indian prisons — Maulana Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar—were later, separately, responsible for attacks on India, including the Indian Parliament, for financing one of the hijackers of the 9/11 attacks and the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl.
Overall, series delivers a gripping, engaging, heart-breaking and a solid watch that lives up to the calibre of its terrific star cast and its director’s credibility. It is definitely a story that needs to be told, and also a series that needs to be watched. While it is adrenaline-inducing to watch the show, it feels equally worrisome to keep track of why what’s happening is happening and how they deal with it. Binge watch series that grabs your attention from the first sequence and keeps you glued till the very last scene. My view on this series Highly Recommended.
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