Amid demands by a section of social media users for boycott of the series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack for allegedly hiding the real identities of the terrorists involved in the 1999 incident on which the film is based, casting director Mukesh Chhabra on Sunday claimed the perpetrators used nicknames for each other and proper research was done for the show.

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 from 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.

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

"I am reading so many tweets about the names of the hijackers. We did the proper research. They used to call each other by those names, nicknames or fake names, whatever you want to call them,” he wrote on X. “And thank you, everyone, for loving the ensemble cast. A big thank you to my team, and especially to Anubhav Sinha for trusting us and giving me the freedom to explore. #IC814 #Netflix.”

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