Netflix India is in the headlines these days because of its series IC-814. Anubhav Sinha has directed the series and we were very confident that the platform will be caught in trouble solely due to his association with the show. It happened so.
Well, people called out IC-814 because the show used Bhola and Shankar as the names of the hijackers when all of them were actually Muslims. This caused a lot of noise on social media platforms, so much so that even the Government of India had to be involved.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting summoned the content head of Netflix India for an explanation. Well, the problem looks big but it isn’t.
Bhola and Shankar were the code names of the hijackers and they indeed called each other through that code name. Thus, Anubhav Sinha chose to keep Bhola and Shankar as the names of the hijackers.
However, the government asked why the series never made the audience aware of the real names of the terrorists.
Netflix India has assured that the series will add a disclaimer which will contain both the real and code names of the terrorists.
Monica Shergill, content head at Netflix India assured to review and guarantee that all future content at the platform will be sensitive to the country’s sentiments.
She stated “For the benefit of audiences unfamiliar with the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814, the opening disclaimer has been updated to include the real and code names of the hijackers. The code names in the series reflect those used during the actual event (sic).”