Emergency Vs IC 814: Hypocrisy Exposed!

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed with the Delhi High Court to ban the Netflix series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack.

The petition, led by Surjit Singh Yadav, a leader of the organization ‘Hindu Sena,’ argues that the series inaccurately portrays the hijackers from a 1999 plane hijacking.

Surjit Yadav claims that the series distorts the terrorists’ real identities, who were Muslim and replaces their names with names associated with Lord Shiva, which offends Hindu religious sentiments and spreads misinformation.

The PIL also argues that the series downplays the impact of the terrorists’ release during the hijacking and misrepresents historical facts. The director of the series used pseudonyms like Bhola and Shankar, which are claimed to be names of Hindu deities, to reflect the nicknames the hijackers used.

The truth is that the hijackers used pseudonyms like Bhola, Shankar, Burger, Chief, and Doctor when addressing each other. The director of the series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack chose to keep these names to maintain authenticity and accurately reflect how the hijackers referred to themselves.

On Monday, Kangana Ranaut criticized the OTT series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, accusing its creators of distorting historical events for political reasons.

She complained that OTT platforms are allowed to show violence and nudity with little oversight, while films with nationalistic themes face heavy censorship.

This criticism comes as her own film, Emergency, which she directed, has been postponed due to Censor issues as the censor board feels that the scenes shown in Emergency can become a threat to society and might invite riots.

Kangana’s stance seems hypocritical. In reality, she and the people calling for the ban on IC 814 are upset not because the terrorists were given Hindu names but because the series exposes how the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led cowardly government released terrorists in 1999 who later caused the deaths of hundreds of Indians.

The same people calling for a boycott of IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack are now questioning why the censor board is blocking the release of Kangana Ranaut’s Emergency.

This exposes hypocrisy: they criticize the series for its accurate portrayal of historical events because it conflicts with their narrative, while at the same time challenging the censor board’s decision on a film directed by one of their own.