The recently released series, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, has both been criticised and praised by viewers. The series has shown the code names for terrorists as ‘Bhola’ and ‘Shankar’, which instigated debate among the masses. During the doubts of these code names being real or an attempt on the part of the director to hide the real identities of the terrorists, many old interviews of IC 814 survivors resurfaced on social media. Among them is an interview of the survivor, Kollattu Ravikumar.
Kollattu was a direct eyewitness to this incident and his recollection of the terror was published in Rediff in 2000, and the report has surfaced again. As he recalled the horror of the hijack, he also confirmed that among the terrorists, two of them were indeed called ‘Bhola’ and ‘Shankar’. Kollattu Ravikumar is a merchant navy captain in a US-based firm. Talking about the hijacking, he said he was initially on the waitlist, but finally boarded the plane.
Ravikumar recalled that when the hijackers took control of the flight, every passenger thought of it as a mock drill and remained calm. However, it wasn’t until the third day of the incident that the survivor caught the hijackers' code names. He said they were ‘Bhola’, ‘Shankar’, ‘Doctor’, and the leader, ‘Burger’. Kollattu also mentioned that the hijackers gave them regular updates on the negotiations between them and the Indian government. Describing the personality of the four, he further added:
“Bhola was always angry, Shankar looked like a well-built commando, but Doctor was the nicest of them all, and Burger apologised to the hostages.”
Directed and co-written by Anubhav Sinha, the series portrays the real-life incident when flight ‘IC 814’ was hijacked on December 24, 1999, on its way to Delhi from Kathmandu. The terror went on for a week before the negotiations were made and the hostages disembarked. The series featured Vijay Varma, Naseeruddin Shah, Patralekha, Pankaj Kapur, Manoj Pahwa, and more. The six-episode-long series is in controversies as the makers didn’t reveal the real identities of terrorists and instead used their code names, hurting sentiments of many. The Government has also summoned Netflix content head for the same.
What do you think of Kollattu Ravikumar’s first-hand account? Let us know.
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