'Seems Censorship Is Only For Some Of Us': Kangana Reacts To Row Over Netflix's IC 814 Kandahar Hijack

Actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut, in an X post on Monday said “censorship is only for some of us, who don’t want tukde of this nation.”

Her remarks came amid demands by a section of social media users for the boycott of the series “IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack” for allegedly hiding the real identities of the terrorists involved in the 1999 incident.

As the controversy boiled, casting director Mukesh Chhabra on Sunday claimed the perpetrators used nicknames for each other and proper research was done for the show.

Kangana shared a post by BJP leader Amit Malviya, which claimed that the series changed the Muslim names of the hijackers into non-Muslim names and added that the series ‘whitewashed’ the harrowing incident.

“Law of the land is that one can show unimaginable amount of violence and nudity on OTT platforms without any consequence or censorship, one can even distort real life events to suit their politically motivated sinister motives, there is all the freedom for communists or leftists across the world for such anti national expressions but as a nationalist no OTT platform allows us to make films that revolves around the integrity and unity of Bharat, it seems censorship is only for some of us who don’t want tukde of this nation and make films on historic facts. It’s hugely demotivating and unjust,” (sic), Kangana’s X post read.

The actor’s reaction came hours after the release of ‘Emergency’ was postponed. The actress previously claimed that the film is struggling to get a certificate from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

“The hijackers of IC-814 were dreaded terrorists, who acquired aliases to hide their Muslim identities. Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha, legitimised their criminal intent, by furthering their non-Muslim names. Result? Decades later, people will think Hindus hijacked IC-814. Left’s agenda to whitewash the crimes of Pakistani terrorists, all Muslims, served. This is the power of cinema, which the Communists have been using aggressively, since the 70s. Perhaps even earlier,” Malviya posted.

“This will not just weaken / put in question India’s security apparatus in the long run, but also shift the blame away from the religious cohort, that is responsible for all the bloodshed,” he added. Reposting the same, Kangana wrote that it is demotivating to see projects with alleged distorted facts are run without censorship on OTT while projects like her film, Emergency, have to face censorship hurdles,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, top sources said a Netflix representative was summoned to New Delhi on September 2, over the backlash the series is facing.

‘IC 814: THE KANDAHAR HIJACK’ SERIES

Directed by Anubhav Sinha, the series is based on the 1999 hijack of an Indian aircraft by five terrorists on December 24, 1999, 40 minutes after it took off from Kathmandu.

It started streaming on Netflix on August 29.

Using hashtags #BoycottNetflix, #BoycottBollywood and #IC814, many X users shared posts claiming the makers changed the names of the hijackers to ‘Shankar’ and ‘Bhola’ to allegedly protect the terrorists who belonged to a certain community.

Chhabra, a prominent casting director in the industry, said the terrorists used “nicknames or fake names” to address each other.

‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ features Vijay Varma, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra, Arvind Swamy, Dia Mirza and Patralekhaa, among others.

IC-814 PLANE HIJACK

Five terrorists Ibrahim Athar, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhter and Sayed Shakir hijacked the IC-814 plane during its flight from Kathmandu to Delhi on December 24, 1999.

At least 154 passengers and crew were held hostage for eight days and the stand-off ended when hardcore terrorists Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar were released and the then External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, took them on a special plane to Kandahar.