Former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief A S Dulat tells Preetha Nair about the recent controversy over Netflix series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ and why he thinks it is not a diplomatic failure of the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Excerpts:
You have admitted that it was a mistake to allow the hijacked IC-814 flight to leave Amritsar.
I said it was a “goof up”. But after watching the scenes of what the passengers went through, I feel that it’s just as well that nothing happened in Amritsar. We don’t know how many people would have been killed. The Punjab DGP also said that there would be killings if they had stormed the plane and that they wanted to avoid bloodshed.
The series shows that RAW and IB had prior information about hijacking. How do you respond to it?
There was no such information. It is all rubbish.
The director is also accused of whitewashing the ISI in the series. Your take.
I haven’t seen the entire movie, but it seems fine. A movie doesn’t necessarily need to criticise the ISI. We know that the ISI was involved. This is a film and the filmmakers have done it on the basis of what they heard or saw.
There is criticism about the AB Vajpayee government being soft on terror as it released three terrorists. You take.
I don’t subscribe to that view. I think the Vajpayee government did its best and that’s what could be done. The priority was to get all the passengers back safe and sound. Though the terrorists demanded the release of a long list of people, it was whittled down to three. So the negotiators did a good job.
Is the series close to the real incidents?
I think it looks pretty close to reality. We didn’t know what was going on in the aircraft. But it looks very sad inside there. The recent controversy is unnecessary.