The Netflix series on the IC-814 hijacking has prompted almost everyone to jump on the bandwagon and point out inaccuracies, if any, especially the accusation regarding the change of the religious identity of terrorists, so much so that the government had to summon Netflix India’s content head, seeking her explanation.
The OTT platform has now agreed to carry an opening disclaimer, which will include real and codenames of the hijackers.
It is, however, amusing to see filmmaker Anubhav Sinha being unfairly vilified for using names by which terrorists addressed each other.
All reports in the public domain, including a statement issued on January 6, 2000, by the Ministry of Home Affairs, suggest that hostages knew terrorists by their code names.
The author of the first book on the Kandahar hijacking, Neelesh Mishra, posted their code names on X:
“Shankar, Bhola…Burger…All the hijackers assumed false names, that is how they referred to each other, and how the passengers referred to them, throughout the hijacking…”
Naturally the filmmaker could not be expected to depict terrorists addressing each other with their original names – Shahid Akhtar Sayeed (Bhola) or Ibrahim Athha (Shankar) – which were revealed to us much after the hijacking had happened.
Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah in his post on X took a dig at double standards displayed by the people when it came to films.
In his post, he said, “It is amusing to see the people who took movies like Kashmir Files as the gospel truth having a meltdown at the way the events of IC 814 are depicted in the Netflix show, now suddenly they want accuracy and nuance packaged in the script.”
The Kashmir Files, a controversial film about Kashmiri Pandits’ exodus from the valley, was condemned for being dangerously polarising.
Visual media, be it films or OTT series, has the potential to whip up emotions, provoking netizens and moviegoers into a mad frenzy, as witnessed during the screening of Kashmir Files and most recently in Article 370, a film about the scraping of special status granted to the erstwhile state of J&K.
The makers of these two films suffer from selective amnesia, especially when it comes to Kashmiri Muslims, since it’s safer and fashionable to play to the gallery instead.
While Kashmir Files gave voice to displaced Kashmiri Pandits and their tragic exodus on January 20, 1990, it was silent on the massacre of Kashmiri Muslims, which happened just a day afterward when the CRPF fired at unarmed protesters and killed over 50 people at Gawakadal in Srinagar.
Four months later, para-military personnel opened fire at a funeral procession at Hawal and killed over 60.
Justice still eludes victims of the Gawakadal and Hawal massacres.
Article 370, meanwhile, has re-created and glorified a dreadful episode of strapping a Kashmiri Muslim to a military vehicle.
In April 2017, an Army Major tied a Kashmiri man to the front of his jeep and drove him around.
The ostensible reason for tying an individual to a vehicle was to stop stone pelters, but it still could not extenuate the savagery of using Kashmiris as human shields.
In another movie, Baaghi 2, released in 2018, leading man Tiger Shroff was depicted tying a Kashmiri to an Army jeep.
There was neither an outrage on social media and nor were any filmmaker summoned for inaccuracies or for hurting Kashmiri sentiments.
The filmmakers depicting the tragic killings of Kashmiri Pandits and their exodus from the valley have preferred to remain silent on the Gawakadal and Hawakadal massacres.
In December 2022, Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant-Governor Manoj Sinha, told Indian Express that “Kashmiri Pandits became victims of targeted killings, but the country should stop seeing this based on religion since a lot of other people have also been killed.”
According to former RAW chief A.S. Dulat, “Kashmiri Pandits did suffer. They were targeted. But they were not the only ones, and they weren’t the first to be targeted.”
There are plenty of Kashmiri Pandits who also believe that films like the Kashmir Files do not show the truth.
So, why this selective amnesia on the part of our filmmakers or selective outrage on the part of netizens and public voices, who disappear when it comes to Kashmiri Muslims?
Ajmer Singh is a senior journalist and was editor of a leading English daily in Kashmir.
