The Information and Broadcast Ministry has issued summons to Netflix content head Monika Shergill over the controversy generated online for their series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, states an ANI report. Some people on social media had objected to the use of aliases for the hijackers like Chief, Burger, Doctor, Bhola and Shankar in the Anubhav Sinha directorial.

The series is based on the real incident which occurred in December 1999, involving the five terrorists hijacking a flight inbound from Kathmandu to Delhi. Although the usage of the aforementioned names for the hijackers is in accordance to the official statement made by the Union Home Minister in January 2000.

In the statement published on the website of Ministry of External Affairs, the names of the terrorists are mentioned to be Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, and Shakir, and it is noted that, “To the passengers of the hijacked place these hijackers came to be known respectively as (1) Chief, (2) Doctor, (3) Burger, (4) Bhola and (5) Shankar, the names by which the hijackers invariably addressed one another.”

Further, the book, ‘Flight Into Fear: The Captain’s Story’, co-written by the captain of the flight Devi Sharan, on which the series is based, contains similar observations about the usage of names of the terrorists.

The series released on Netflix on August 29. It has an impressive ensemble of Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Vijay Varma, Manoj Pahwa and Patralekhaa among others.