‘My Father Was on That Plane': EAM Jaishankar Reveals Shocking Details of 1984 Hijacking Incident

New Delhi: Recalling the memories of the 1984 hijacking incident, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said that his late father Krishnaswamy Subramanyam was on that plane which was hijacked and taken to Dubai via Lahore and Karachi. 

Sharing his personal ordeal over a question of Netflix’s latest series on IC-814, Jaishankar in Geneva said, “I have not seen the film so I don’t want to comment. In 1984, there was a hijack and I was a very young officer and a part of a team who was dealing with it (negotiations). My son was a few months old…Later I discovered that my father was on that flight. It ended up in Dubai and fortunately, nobody got killed. It was interesting that on the one hand I was a part of the team that was working on hijacking negotiations and on the other hand I was a part of the family which was pressing the government.” 

My Father Was on Hijacked Plane | WATCH 

Krishnaswamy Subramanyam (1929-2011) was on a hijacked Indian Airlines plane on August 24, 1984. The aircraft was initially forced to land in Lahore, then flew to Karachi, and finally to Dubai. All passengers were safely released in Dubai, thanks to successful negotiations by the UAE's defense minister with the hijackers.

The Netflix series 'IC-814

Meanwhile, the "Kandahar Hijack" series sparked a controversy on social media over its portrayal of the hijackers. Surjit Singh Yadav, Chief of Hindu Sena, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Delhi High Court, requesting a ban on the Netflix series. The PIL argued that the series misrepresents the hijackers' identities by assigning Hindu names like "Bhola" and "Shankar"—names linked to Lord Shiva—to the real hijackers Ibrahim Akhtar, Shahid Akhtar Sayeed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Zahoor Mistry, and Shakir. In response to the backlash, Netflix updated its disclaimer to include both the real names and code names of the hijackers.