IC184 The Kandahar Hijack is the re-telling of the infamous incident in India’s defence history. It has piqued the nation’s interest and the Indian officials involved in the negotiations and the victims who were held hostage abroad on the plane are recalling the ordeal. One such passenger, Jeevan Bhatt, said in a recent chat that the hostages experienced Stockholm Syndrome during the hijack and even contributed cash for the ‘poor Afghans’.
In an interview with the Face to Face YouTube channel, Jeevan said, “Burger was the kingpin. He would come around and say, ‘You look upset, let’s sing songs and tell jokes’. Basically, everybody inside the plane was a victim of Stockholm Syndrome. One man from Karol Bagh even promised to print pamphlets for their cause the minute he got back to India. They kept telling us about the atrocities that Indian forces had committed against Kashmiris, and said that they would never stoop to that level because they’re good people.”
He continued, “You won’t believe it; they told us that people in Afghanistan are in such poor condition, and urged us to contribute money for them. They took donations from the passengers! I think they collected around Rs 80,000. Everybody contributed. The air hostesses would walk down the aisles with bags, and we pooled in our cash. It was around 80,000 — a big amount even back then. It was all for the poor people in Kandahar.”
Jeevan Bhatt said that one hijacker also tried to preach Islam. “He conducted two sessions, I think. This was the same hijacker who killed Rupin Katyal. They would say that Masood Azhar is a writer, and has falsely been branded as a terrorist,” he said.
In a recent interview with India Today TV, another passenger, Pooja Kataria, also spoke about the donations. “They [hijackers] really insisted that Afghanistan was very poor, and we should do charity for them. So, we collected 85,000 from all the passengers and gave it to them for Afghanistan,” she said.
The release of Netflix’s latest Hindi series, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, has sparked discussions that have strayed from its core narrative, drawing attention instead to peripheral details. However, the heart of the series remains a powerful testament to the courage and resilience displayed by the passengers and crew of flight IC 814. The hijacking, which ended after a tense week-long negotiation that saw the release of three high-profile terrorists, including Masood Azhar, is a story of survival and determination.
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