FORMER Indian high commissioner to Islamabad Gopalaswami Parthasarathy has said that 1999 hijack of an Indian aircraft to Kandahar was totally Pakistan's handiwork and al Qaeda was not involved.
The Indian Airlines' Kathmandu-Delhi flight was hijacked by five terrorists on December 24, 1999, 40 minutes after it took off from the Nepalese capital.
In an interview to India Today, Parthasarathy said, “It was totally Pakistani involvement. The terrorists involved were Pakistanis, the terrorists released were Pakistanis. There is no question of al Qaeda, that is the farthest thing to say."
The new Netflix series 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack', directed by Anubhav Sinha, has been accused of giving a clean chit to Pakistan's spy agency the Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI) by linking the hijackers involved with Afghanistan and al Qaeda.
The former diplomat alleged that Pakistan had delayed his flight from Islamabad to Lahore, when he was prepared to visit the hijacked plane.
Before the hijacked plane reached Kandahar, it had stopped at Lahore, Amritsar and Dubai.
Parthasarathy said it is hard to blame the then Indian government for releasing the terrorists as the hijackers were armed and lives of Indian passengers were at stake.
He felt it would have been 'irresponsible' to try military action. "We were not willing to take risk with our own people” he added.
‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ started streaming on Netflix from August 29 and has run into controversies.
Many social media users alleged the names of the hijackers have been changed to ‘Shankar’ and ‘Bhola’ to allegedly protect the terrorists.
Information and Broadcasting Secretary Sanjay Jaju summoned the Netflix India’s contend head, Monika Shergill, to convey the government’s strong disapproval.
Following this Netflix tweaked the opening disclaimer to include the real and code names of the hijackers.
The names of the five terrorists are Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter and Sayed Shakir.
Army personnel stand amid the rubble following an explosion inside the police headquarters at Kohat in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on September 18, 2026. An explosion at a historic police headquarters in northern Pakistan on September 18 killed at least eight people and wounded 35 more, officials said, with the country's president swiftly blaming a militant group. Getty Images
Mourners read the holy Quran while sitting around the grave of a paramilitary personnel of the Frontier Corps (FC) who was killed during the Afghanistan-Pakistan border clashes, in Kohat on October 17, 2025. A ceasefire along the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan was holding on October 16, officials on both sides said, after dozens of troops and civilians were killed in cross-border clashes.Getty Images
