New Delhi: Like many literary and popular culture works over the past decade in India, Netflix series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack has also attracted the “controversial” tag.
The OTT release has reignited the debate around the response of Indian policymakers when posed with massive security challenges.
The terrorists who were bartered for the lives and safety of 176 passengers made sure that India faced more terrorism, and now the series has set off a string of “what if” scenarios among Indians.
Director Anubhav Sinha faced criticism for the real and claimed identity of the terrorists in the show, prompting the central government to intervene and give instructions to Netflix.
But the spotlight he puts on one crucial aspect—indecision during a crisis, which had severe implications—should be the focus of discussions.
People, after all, vote for the government to make these tough decisions. Government servants are meant to ensure the decision-making process becomes easier for the elected representatives. The series brings back into public memory how the IC 814 hijack, which lasted eight days, tested a desperate Indian security establishment and its decision-making. Nearly a quarter of a century later, it shows the collective trauma—of not just the ones negotiating from the Indian side but of Indians as well. And that is why it is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
Also read: IC 814 hijack was a victory for Masood Azhar—and the moment of his strategic downfall
A collapse of common sense
There are several debates on whether India should have given in to the demands of the five hijackers. But there is no doubt that India’s emergency response system was truly exposed before the world.
At the time of the hijacking, India was facing sanctions after conducting a series of nuclear tests in 1998. It didn’t have the diplomatic might that it enjoys now. And the botched response to the crisis didn’t help its standing.
The mistakes started from the moment air traffic control was alerted of such a situation.
The Varanasi Air Traffic Control (ATC) informed the Delhi ATC about the hijacking at 4:52 pm, which was confirmed shortly after at 4:56 pm by the pilot who flashed the hijack code to the Delhi ATC. The pilot also informed the ATC that the armed terrorists wanted to take the flight to Lahore.
However, it took India’s top decision-makers—then cabinet secretary, home secretary and the civil aviation secretary—more than an hour to assemble.
Former Director General of the Punjab Police, KPS Gill, who discussed the hijacking crisis in a research paper in 2000, noted some comical but disastrous reasons for the delay of the meeting of the Crisis Management Group.
The Delhi Airport did not have updated contact numbers of officials who were to be informed. The officials had no idea what to do after being informed of the hijacking.
Despite all the precedents and information available, the policymakers were so devoid of tactical sense that no response system was activated at Amritsar’s Raja Sansi Airport, where the plane finally landed to refuel.
The PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, freshly elected for a third term, was on a flight from Patna to Delhi when ATC was informed of the hijacking. His flight landed in Delhi at 5.20 pm and he allegedly summoned his cabinet colleagues at 5:35 pm. The CMG finally decided to meet at 6 pm. But there was still no cohesive response.
Also read: Netflix’s ‘IC 814’ is an expensive PR job for the ISI—shows R&AW torturing civilians
‘Avoidable, unforgivable’
Minutes after the IC 814 landed at Amritsar airport, communication was established between local authorities and the CMG in Delhi—but the instructions were not specific.
Then cabinet secretary and CMG chairperson, Prabhat Kumar, spoke to Amritsar Senior Superintendent of Police and Brajesh Mishra, the PM’s principal secretary, spoke to the Deputy Inspector General of Police. Both of them asked the local officers to delay refuelling and ensure the flight did not take off, but there was no tactical guidance on how to achieve the target.
The lack of proper communication facilities at the Amristar airport hampered the already poor coordination. There was no STD line to contact Delhi directly, mobile phones of police officers were being used for communication.
Gill further noted that after the cabinet secretary and PM’s principal secretary approached officials in the Amritsar control room, they assumed a passive role and waited for specific instructions from Delhi which never came.
He noted that before they received calls from Delhi, local authorities were preparing to refuel the aircraft, which he argued would have opened far more options for negotiation.
First, the authorities could have argued that they didn’t have the proper ladder to refuel an Airbus aircraft. This would have been a legitimate way to delay the plane as the flight could not have taken off if a fuel tanker was connected to it.
Gill argued that the process of refuelling and defueling an aircraft is similar and that the aircraft could have been quickly immobilised had there been a prompt response by the CMG and the local authorities.
Gill further noted that refuelling was delayed to allow the National Security Guards to land in Amritsar. Even though the flight was on the tarmac for 74 minutes, the NSG missed them by 26 minutes.
The extent of incompetency in analysing the situation and quick decision-making by the security establishment can be understood through just this episode. It took the NSG three hours and 20 minutes after the ATC in Delhi received information about the hijack to reach Amritsar airport.
The mistakes did not end there, Gill said that decision-makers in Delhi were working under “erroneous” assumptions that the hijackers could not keep flying west as Lahore had refused sanction for landing the aircraft and they didn’t have fuel to go beyond the same. However, their analysis faltered here. They were unable to pick up on the pilot’s messages about fuel—which were to ensure a landing in Amritsar.
Gill also argued that since decision-makers were risking lives by delaying the refuelling of the aircraft, they could have taken more preventative measures such as blocking the runway or disabling the plane.
While then foreign minister Jaswant Singh managed a diplomatic manoeuvre to rescue 13 women and 11 children at Dubai airport—the flight’s third stop—it took off again to Kandahar. The final negotiations for the rescue of hostages took place in the Taliban-ruled region.
India released three terrorists Maulana Masood Azhar, Umar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar (Latram), in exchange for hostages on 31 December 1999.
Masood Azhar went on to establish Jaish-e-Mohammed the following year and orchestrated several high-profile terror attacks such as the attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001, Pathankot air base attack in 2016 and the ambush on a CRPF convoy in 2019. Saeed Sheikh was back in the headlines in 2002 when he butchered the South Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal Daniel Pearl. And Mushtaq Zargar was used by the ISI to create trouble in Kashmir.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)