Anubhav Sinha’s IC184 The Kandahar Hijack introduces a new generation to an old tragedy in Indian history. The re-telling of the infamous hijack’s story has piqued the nation’s interest and the Indian officials involved in the negotiations are recalling the ordeal. In a recent chat, the chief of the R&AW at the time, AS Dulat, recalled how Ajit Doval felt ‘regret’ after the negotiations.
In the show, Ajit Doval’s character is played by Manoj Pahwa under a different name. In an interview with Barkha Dutt, Dulat recalled his meeting with the hostage negotiators after they returned. He said, “He (Doval) would regret it because he was Advani ji’s protege. Their thinking was alike. As Advani ji felt, Ajit would also have felt that…”
When asked if LK Advani was against agreeing to the hijacker’s demands and handing over the three terrorists, including Masood Azhar, Dulat said, “Yes, but you’re pitchforked into that. What do you do? You have a job to do, and you do it. Ajit would do any job, he’s a thorough professional. Mentally, he would’ve thought, ‘Yeh kya ho raha hai, kyun ho raha hai (What is happening, why is it happening)?”
He said, “These guys were in quite a hole in Kandahar, and I could feel for them. They were four of our best guys; Ajit, Nehchal Sandhu from the IB, and there was CD Sahay and Anand Arni from the R&AW… I could appreciate and understand that this thing isn’t going to be easy. It was going to be a tough time, because we had no relationship with the Taliban, and our relationship with Pakistan was possibly in one of its bad periods.”
Dulat said that he received a call from Doval six days after the negotiations began and mentioned they might not be safe. Recalling Doval’s phone call on December 30, Dulat said, “(He implied) that negotiators themselves might not be safe, and that it was getting out of their hands. The main thing was to whittle down these demands. We knew that there would be demands, and the main demand, we knew from day one, would be Masood Azhar.”
“The list went down from 105 to three, and when that happened, it was on December 30, around the time of a crucial Cabinet Committee on Security meeting. I think Ajit knew in Kandahar that there was this meeting, and he called me and said, ‘Please resolve kariye, jaldi kariye, because we don’t know what’s going to happen here. The Taliban is saying either you resolve this matter or get the hell out of here’,” he concluded.
The show is currently streaming on Netflix.
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