Pavan K. Varma | Kandahar surrender: Why slam series? Learn lessons!

I am an ardent admirer of Atal Behari Vajpayee, but I have no hesitation in saying that in the handling of this hijack, he was badly advised, and severely let down by his intelligence and anti-terrorism apparatus. The result was that India became the victim of a completely botched up attempt to avert one of the biggest humiliations it has faced at the hands of Pakistan.

Delhi, which was informed just three minutes after the hijack, was — in spite of intel of such a possibility — completely unprepared for a quick and effective response. The crisis management team, headed by the Cabinet secretary, was caught off guard, there was unacceptable delay in response time, confusion among different intelligence agencies, poor coordination, absence of contingency planning and lack of strategic clarity.

This became starkly apparent, when by an unexpected stroke of luck, the plane was forced to land at Amritsar. Authorities at the airport had instructions not to let it take off, but in the absence of decisive command-and-control communication between Delhi and Punjab, the tarmac was not blocked, nor were our National Security Guard NSG) commandos mobilised to reach Amritsar in time. Former foreign secretary and national security adviser, J.N. Dixit, wrote: “There was a lack of coordination in terms of speed and time between the authorities at Delhi and Amritsar. The runway was not blocked immediately after the landing of the plane at Amritsar. The NSG commandos did not scramble into their action/operational mode with sufficient speed. The hijackers had enough time to take off without facing any effective Indian resistance.”

IC-814 re-fueled in Amritsar, and via Dubai, finally landed at Taliban controlled Kandahar. India had to completely capitulate to the hijackers demands. The country was then witness to foreign minister Jaswant Singh himself personally escorting three extremely dangerous terrorists — Mushtaq Zargar, Omar Sheikh and Masood Azhar — to whose release Farooq Abdullah, CM of Jammu & Kashmir strongly protested — to obtain the release of the passengers. Azhar, on return, formed the terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammad, which continues to kill our people and brave soldiers even now.

So, what is the controversy about? Why is director Anubhav Sinha, the maker of critically acclaimed films like Article 15, and Netflix, being accused of being biased or economical with the truth? The hullabaloo began by a message on X by BJP leader Amit Malviya. He wrote that by using the hijacker’s non-Muslim names, which they used as aliases, specifically Bhola (Mistri Zahoor) and Shankar (Shakir), the filmmakers wanted to depict the hijackers as Hindus. Frankly, I find this laughable. Hijackers hide their identity and real names. But nobody — not the Indian people, nor the media, nor the government — was in any doubt — then and now — that they were Muslims from Pakistan acting under the instructions of its intelligence agency ISI.

A second allegation is that the film deliberately “humanised” the hijackers. I found no evidence of this, except that when passengers spend over a week with their captors, there can develop a certain familiarity between them and some of the captives. This has been attested to by many of the hostages who, in doing so, do not play down the essential ruthlessness of the hijackers. In any case, the series — anticipating such simulated controversies — makes clear that is a work of fiction set against the backdrop of certain real-life events, and does not make any claim to authenticity or historical correctness. This is a standard disclaimer, because it is inevitable that on such a sensitive subject, where remembrances of other witnesses could vary in what was the longest hijacking in India’s aviation history, there were bound to be some allegations on the complete accuracy of what was shown. However, it should be remembered that the series is based on a book written by the captain of the plane, Devi Sharan, in collaboration with senior journalist Srinjoy Choudhary.

Netflix has now been instructed to give the real names of the hijackers in the opening credits, which it never intended to hide anyway. None of this dilutes the ineptitude of the Indian government, which so easily succumbed to pressure of the hostages’ family members to secure their release. This was achieved save one casualty. But at what cost? What is unfortunate is that no credible or effective attempt was made to free the passengers with minimum — or even no casualties — by a surprise commando attack at the time when the plane was in Amritsar. Punjab super cop, K.P.S. Gill has written that “clear indications had been available for the last 45 minutes that the pilot was aiming to land the plane at Amritsar”. If this is indeed so, then the inability of our NSG commandos to be airlifted to Amritsar in time to strategically storm the plane, or at the least prevent it from taking off, is even more unfortunate. There was no experienced negotiator in position, the airport authorities in Amritsar were not told to delay the refueling bowser, the Punjab police was not given categorical instructions, and there was dilly dallying in overruling the reluctance of the then CM of Punjab, Prakash Singh Badal, to authorise decisive action because he did not want “bloodshed in Punjab”. The ATC was finally informed at 7.35 pm that an NSG team was being sent. But by then it was too late. The hijacked plane took off at 7.49 pm.

The BJP which projects itself as the muscular crusader against terrorism, would like to forget the abject failure of its own previous government in pursuing such a policy. Atalji would have been far more honest about what went wrong. But not so some of his successors today. However, if we do politics over the incontrovertible mistakes of the past, we will never fully learn the lessons we need to for the future.