The cast announcement video for the upcoming series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, based on true events depicting the longest hijack in Indian history, is out. The show marks the OTT debut of Anubhav Sinha, best known for films like Thappad and Article 15.
The series explores the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 on December 24, 1999, en route from Kathmandu to Delhi. Five masked gunmen took control of the Airbus, diverting it to several locations, including Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai, before landing in Kandahar, Afghanistan. This event left 188 passengers stranded inside the plane for seven days, sometimes on the ground and other times at 30,000 feet.
The star-studded cast includes Vijay Varma, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Kumud Mishra, Arvind Swamy, Manoj Pahwa, Dia Mirza, Amrita Puri, Patralekha, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Anupam Tripathi, Pooja Gor, Aditya Shrivatav, Kanwaljit Singh, Sushant Singh, and Yashpal Sharma.
The recently released cast announcement video sets the stage for the series, showcasing the resilience, mayhem, skill, and tact involved in the mission to rescue the passengers. The logline reads, ” On 24 December 1999, Indian Airlines flight IC 814, en route from Kathmandu to New Delhi, was hijacked and taken to Kandahar in Taliban-governed Afghanistan. The hijack lasted seven days; while passengers and crew suffered, some great officers back home struggled to answer the ‘who’ and ‘why’ – answers that were beyond the obvious and extremely complex. But the people had to be brought back home safely. The clock was ticking as the negotiations forged through; this is the story of those seven days which became the longest hijack in Indian history.”
The filming of the series is set to commence soon, promising a gripping narrative of the harrowing events surrounding the Kandahar hijacking.