Incredible true story behind Netflix’s new plane hijacking series

A new Netflix series follows the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight in December 1999 that took seven days to resolve, remaining the longest seizure of an aircraft in Indian aviation history.

Adapted from the book Flight Into Fear by Captain Devi Sharan, the pilot on board the hijacked flight, IC814: The Kandahar Hijack delves into the crisis from various perspectives – the politicians and bureaucrats in Delhi’s War Room to the terrified hostages on board.

Five masked men hijacked the aircraft on 24 December 1999, 40 minutes after it took off from the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, bound for New Delhi.

Sharan was forced to fly the plane into Pakistani airspace, where he did not receive clearance to land, despite the Indian High Commission in Pakistan making repeated requests. The plane then landed in Amritsar a little before 7pm, with barely 10 minutes worth of fuel left.

In Amritsar, the Indian authorities were tasked with delaying the refuelling of the plane for as long as possible. But at the same time, the hijackers wanted the plane back in the air, with permission to land in Pakistan.

“Please get permission to land at OPLA (Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore)… otherwise they are ready to crash anywhere … they have already selected 10 people to kill,” Sharan said to the Indian Air Traffic Control, according to India Today.

Chaos ensued, as he made contact with the ATC again, telling them that the hijackers had begun to kill hostages. Soon after, at 750pm, he took off.

“We are all dying,” he told the ATC.

The hijackers forced Sharan to fly the plane to Lahore, where the pilot made a desperate landing despite not getting permission from Pakistan’s ATC, which turned off all lights and navigational aids at the airport.

After refuelling, the plane once again took off from Lahore and attempted to land in Dubai. After being refused permission there as well, the flight landed at the Al Minhad Air Base in the UAE. Here, the hijackers released 27 of the 176 passengers, including the body of 25-year-old Rupin Katyal, who had been fatally stabbed by the hijackers.

After this, the plane finally landed in the hijackers’ original destination, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan’s Kandahar airport.

It was here that the remaining hostages waited for the next six days, while the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led government negotiated with the terrorists who wanted India to release 36 prisoners in exchange for the hostages.

The five Pakistani hijackers were identified as Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, and Shakir, and belonged to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), a Pakistan-based Islamist terror group.

Their demands were simple: they wanted the release of HuM members Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Masood Azhar, and Pakistan-backed Kashmiri militant, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar.

After intense negotiations and internal handwringing, on 30 December the Indian government managed to convince the hijackers to release all hostages for three terrorists.

“I must have slept around 3 am. I woke up at 8 am. The usual Afghan bread was served for breakfast. I did not feel like eating. I was worried that the millennium would end in hours and I would be missing the celebrations. I was thinking of many things,” reads the account of 41-year-old merchant navy captain Kollattu Ravikumar, one of the hostages on the flight.

All three terrorists who were released have since been implicated in terror attacks, including the attack on parliament of India in New Delhi in 2001, the terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008, the kidnapping and murder of The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002.

Once the hostages were freed, Indian authorities assumed that the Taliban officials would arrest the hijackers and secure the released terrorists. Instead, the Taliban drove them across the border, towards Quetta in Pakistan.

The BJP government faced severe criticism over failing to resolve the crisis sooner, and especially over allowing the flight to leave Indian territory.

AK Doval, the 64-year-old former Intelligence Bureau Chief who led the four-member negotiating team to Kandahar, described it as a “diplomatic failure” and a “bloody disgrace” for India.

“There was a diplomatic failure on our inability. When we know that the US is totally against the terrorists, they are against the Taliban, they had total hold over the UAE, we could not leverage this thing. Our Ambassador could not even get inside the airport (in Abu Dhabi),” he said to news agency Press Trust of India.

The series has an ensemble cast, and is created by Anubhav Sinha and Trishant Srivastava.

“Trishant, the writer, and I dived in thinking most of the information is available online. Documentaries and vlogs have been made, articles have been written, so we wanted to sink our teeth deeper for a more succulent bite,” Sinha told Variety.

“We met officials engaged in running the rescue mission from Delhi, and passengers and the crew told us the story inside the aircraft. Adrian Levy, an eminent journalist, author and filmmaker from London came on board and an all-new international canvas unfolded before us.

“What went on across those seven days turned out to be a compelling story that cuts through chilling and thrilling tactical and diplomatic manoeuvres that had to be told. The viewers must know this story that has never been told inside out before with a cast I don’t know if I can put together again.”

IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack will be available to stream on Netflix from 29 August.

Israeli strikes kill 37 Palestinians in Gaza as ceasefire talks falter

Israel killed at least 37 Palestinians in Gaza and eight in southern Lebanon in a series of attacks as international efforts to broker a ceasefire faltered.

The attacks, targeting residential areas, were particularly deadly in and around the city of Khan Younis, where most of the casualties were reported from. The dead included four women and as many children from a family whose home in the al-Amal neighbourhood was shelled, Al Jazeera reported.

At least three people were also killed in a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp.

An Israeli drone fired on displaced Palestinians sheltering in tents near Salah al-Din Street in central Gaza, injuring at least five people, while warplanes bombed the Abu Arif neighbourhood in the region. It was not immediately known if there were any casualties.

Israel also conducted airstrikes in southern Lebanon, killing at least eight people, including a child. The Israeli military released footage of one of the strikes claiming it was targeting a Hezbollah cell.

Amid escalating violence in southern Lebanon, China warned its citizens in the country about the “severe and complex” security situation and advised them to leave while commercial flights were still available.

Several major countries previously advised citizens to leave Lebanon amid fears that the Israeli assault on Gaza – which began after Hamas raided southern Israel on 7 October and killed about 1,200 people – could spill over into a regional war.

The Israelis have killed over 40,000 Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza so far, according to the health authorities. They have also killed at least 632 Palestinians and displaced nearly 1,400 in over 1,000 attacks in the West Bank since 7 October, according to data from Israeli forces, Palestinian officials and the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Israel’s bombardment has also displaced 1.9 million people in Gaza and left the besieged territory’s entire population of over 2.2 million at the risk of famine and disease, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

The Israelis continued their attacks in Gaza as talks to broker a ceasefire seemed to falter in Cairo. The talks involved Israeli officials and intermediaries from the United States, Egypt and Qatar.

Brett McGurk, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, was leading the American delegation, the Associated Press reported, quoting a US official who spoke anonymously.

The outcome of the latest round of discussions on Thursday remained uncertain as Hamas appeared unwilling to accede to new demands introduced by Israel since the Palestinian group accepted a version of the ceasefire deal unveiled by US president Joe Biden in May, Reuters reported.

Israel demands to keep troops in two strategic corridors in Gaza – Netzarim Corridor, which runs the width of the territory, and Philadelphi Corridor along the border with Egypt – and retain the option to resume fighting after the first phase of a ceasefire, The New York Times reported.

Hamas is asking for a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces.

The humanitarian situation, meanwhile, continued to worsen, with over 80 per cent of Gaza’s population displaced and living in overcrowded, unsanitary tent camps.

To add to their misery, Israel issued a new evacuation order for southern Gaza, including areas it previously designated as a “humanitarian zone”. Palestinians said there was no safe place left to go.

After the new Israeli evacuation order for the overcrowded city of Deir al-Balah, rights groups raised alarm about Gaza’s worsening humanitarian crisis.

Amid repeated evacuation orders by the Israeli military, the UN said over a million people in southern and central Gaza might not receive food aid rations for August.

The International Rescue Committee reported that polio had resurfaced in Gaza after a quarter century, attributing it to the destruction of healthcare and water infrastructure and overcrowded living conditions.

Dr Jude Senkugu, the group’s emergency health coordinator, warned that “the news of polio in Gaza should be an alarm bell that more infectious diseases are on the way” and highlighted the dire lack of clean water and the risk of further disease spread.

The World Health Organisation had earlier reported that a 10-month-old baby was paralysed by type 2 polio virus, the first such case in Gaza in 25 years.

Doctors Without Borders warned that shrinking living spaces were accelerating disease transmission. “There is no room to put tents up,” coordinator Jacob Granger said. “The overcrowding, severe lack of water, and minimal sanitation services are fueling the spread of diseases.”

Both organisations joined global aid agencies in calling for an immediate ceasefire.

At least 14 dead after bus carrying Indian pilgrims plunges into river

At least 14 people were killed, 16 others injured, and several more believed to be missing after a bus carrying dozens of Indian pilgrims drove off a key highway on Friday in Nepal, officials said.

The bus veered off the Prithvi Highway and rolled toward a fast-flowing river, stopping on the rocky bank. The top part of the bus was ripped, but the wreckage did not plunge into the Marsyangdi river.

Armed police force spokesperson Shailendra Thapa said that among those pulled out of from the bus, 14 were declared dead and 16 were injured in the accident.

Officials could not yet say how many more were missing or the exact number of people on the bus when it crashed, but they estimated there were some four dozen on board at the time of the accident.

Police and army rescuers were helping to pull people from the wreckage near Abukhaireni, a town about 120km (75miles) west of the capital, Kathmandu.

At least 29 passengers were rescued from the bus bearing the Uttar Pradesh state number plate UP 53 FT 7623, reported the Times of India newspaper.

The bus from neighbouring Indian town of Gorakhpur was heading toward Kathmandu from the resort town of Pokhara on Friday when it drove off the highway midway in the journey.

In July, two buses were swept by landslides not too far from Friday’s accident site. Of the 65 people on board those two buses, only three survived and only about half the bodies were recovered. The wreckage of those buses have not been found yet but authorities have continued to search.

Bus accidents in Nepal are mostly due to poorly maintained roads and vehicles and much of the country is covered by mountains with narrow roads.

All 9 passengers and crew feared dead in Thailand plane crash

All nine people on board a small passenger plane are believed to be dead after the aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from Bangkok’s main airport in Thailand on Thursday afternoon.

There were five tourists from Hong Kong on board, as well as two cabin crew members and a pilot and co-pilot, all four from Thailand.

The crash occured 11 minutes after departure, the country’s civil aviation authority confirmed.

The plane, a Cessna Caravan C208B, reportedly lost contact with air traffic control and crashed in a mangrove swamp in Chachoengsao province.

The plane was on its way to Trat, a coastal province located about 275km (171 miles) southeast of Bangkok.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand reported that the turboprop plane, operated by the Thai Flying Service Company, took off from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport at 2.46pm local time. However, 11 minutes later, air traffic control lost radio and radar contact with the aircraft, which was about 35km southeast of the airport at that point.

According to the Bangkok Post, search and rescue efforts continued into Thursday night.

It stated that the wreckage of the small plane was discovered in the muddy terrain of a mangrove forest and search and rescue teams found women’s clothing and a photo of three foreign women at the crash site.

Local police said search teams were collecting the wreckage, but as of Thursday evening, no sign of the plane’s occupants had been found. However, the Associated Press, citing a provincial government spokesperson, stated that after approximately an hour of searching rescuers discovered fragmented body parts in the swampy terrain.

The search efforts have also been hampered by high tide flooding the area near the mouth of the Bang Pakong River.

The cause of the crash is still unknown.

Thailand confirms Asia’s first case of dangerous new mpox variant

Thailand has confirmed Asia’s first known case of a new, more dangerous strain of mpox in a European traveller.

The patient, a 66-year-old man who arrived from an unnamed African country on 14 August, has tested positive for the Clade 1b variant, which is deadlier and more transmissible.

“Thailand’s Department of Disease Control wishes to confirm the lab test result which shows mpox Clade 1b in a European patient,” the department said in a statement.

The man had minimal contact with other people after he arrived in Thailand and sought medical attention the following day after he experienced symptoms similar to mpox, authorities said.

“We have monitored 43 people who have been in close contact with the patient and so far they have shown no symptoms, but we must continue monitoring for a total of 21 days,” the department said.

Earlier, Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn, head of the Department of Disease Control, told Reuters: “After he arrives from the flight there is very little timeframe where he comes into contact with others.

“He arrived around 6pm and on the next day, 15 August, he went to see the doctor at the hospital.”

He had earlier told AFP that the department had done a test and “they definitely have mpox and it’s definitely not Clade 2”.

“We are convinced the person has the Clade 1 variant, but we have to wait to see the final result in the lab for two more days.”

Thailand previously detected 800 cases of the Clade 2 variant but not any of Clade 1 or Clade 1b.

The European traveller had been placed in quarantine after his arrival in Bangkok, and lab tests were conducted to confirm the strain.

The department added that anyone travelling to Thailand from the 42 designated “risk countries” must register and undergo testing upon arrival.

There are two distinct clades or natural groups of the mpox virus: Clade 1 and Clade 2.

Clade 2 was responsible for the global outbreak which started in 2022. Clade 1 is considered more severe and is classified as a high consequence infectious disease.

The WHO has declared a public health emergency due to a new mpox outbreak in several African nations, with at least three cases now reported outside the continent.

More than 17,000 cases and 571 deaths have been confirmed in Africa so far this year.

In Thailand, authorities have mandated that all international airport disease control checkpoints and ports, particularly at Don Muang and Suvarnabhumi airports and Laem Chabang port, screen passengers arriving from Africa, the Bangkok Post reported.

The Philippines also recently reported its first mpox case of the year, involving a 33-year-old Filipino male with no travel history, the Department of Health announced on Monday. The patient is currently recovering in a hospital.

“We’re lucky because this mpox we found [here] was the original variety, clade 2. Mpox entered the country and [is] probably circulating in our community,” country’s health secretary Teodoro Herbosa was quoted as saying by news channel ANC.

Elsewhere in the region, Indonesia is implementing screening measures at its entry points. The Malaysian health ministry also announced it will start preventive measures, including increased surveillance at international entry points, requiring travellers from countries with mpox cases to monitor their health for 21 days.

Vietnam’s health ministry stated in a directive on Monday that it will monitor for “suspected cases at the border” and report them to a central database.

At least 12 Pakistan police officers killed in ambush by bandits

At least 12 police officers have been killed in Pakistan’s deadliest attack of its kind by bandits in the eastern province of Punjab, officials said.

The toll rise by one on Friday after a wounded officer died in hospital.

Thursday’s attack with guns and rocket-propelled grenades also wounded eight officers. It took place in the Kacha area in Rahim Yar Khan district, which is known for hideouts along the Indus River where hundreds of heavily armed bandits evade police.

Punjab police chief Usman Anwar said police killed a bandit leader who was behind the attack named Bashir Shar. In a statement, Anwar said the operation against the robbers is still ongoing, and it will continue until the last bandit is eliminated in the province.

Senior police and government officials will attend the funerals of slain officers later Friday.

Bandits often rob people traveling on highways in Punjab and elsewhere in the country. Some areas in Punjab are so dangerous that people avoid traveling after sunset to avoid getting robbed, though police have cleared most of the so-called “no-go areas.”

According to police, the bandits ambushed police when one of the vehicles carrying officers broke down while passing through flooded farm fields. Pakistan has been lashed by monsoon rains since July.

The attack was denounced by President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who released statements to express sorrow and described the slain officers as martyrs.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in violence, mostly blamed on militants, in recent years but the death of so many police officers in one attack in unprecedented.

Police said the robbers took advantage of the darkness to attack police. In a statement, they said that the “morale of the police is high, and such cowardly actions by robbers cannot lower the morale of the police.”

Two dead after jumping to escape hotel fire as air mattress fails

A fire at a hotel in Bucheon, South Korea, killed seven people and injured dozens of others on Thursday.

Two of the victims reportedly died after jumping from the eighth floor of the hotel onto an air mattress provided by the fire department, which flipped upon impact.

The fire was first reported at about 7.39pm local time on Thursday. Of the seven people who died, five were killed by smoke inhalation, according to Cho Seon-ho, chief of the Gyeonggi provincial fire services.

The other two victims died after jumping from a window, trying to land on an inflatable mattress set up by firefighters. The first person hit the edge of the cushion, causing it to flip and fatally injure the second person, who jumped immediately after.

The fire reportedly started on the eighth floor, likely due to an electrical fault. The hotel has nine storeys.

The damage is believed to be extensive because the rooms lacked sprinklers, the local fire officials said on Friday. The hotel was built before sprinklers were legally required. The fire, however, did not spread throughout the building.

Videos from the site of the fire showed smoke billowing from the eighth floor. The name of the hotel was not immediately available.

At the time of the fire, more than 20 guests were inside the hotel, according to Yonhap news agency. Pictures from the site also showed several fire tenders and ambulances outside the hotel.

Those injured in the fire have been taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

The victims’ bodies were reportedly found lying in staircases and halls. In June this year, a massive fire at a lithium battery factory in Hwaseong, located 45km south of Seoul, killed 23 people.

Nepal lifts TikTok ban imposed for disrupting ‘social harmony’

Nepal on Thursday decided to lift its ban on Tiktok, nine months after it restricted the video-sharing social media app for disrupting “social harmony”.

The government’s decision came about during a cabinet meeting, reported the state-run National News Agency.

“A decision to remove the ban on TikTok has been made,” the minister for communications and information technology, Prithvi Subba Gurung, told reporters.

This comes a week after TikTok’s South Asia division requested Gurung that the ban be lifted and that it would follow Nepal’s regulations, according to ministry spokesperson Gajendra Kumar Thakur.

However, TikTok has to fulfil certain conditions before it can resume operations, and has been given three months to do so.

“Now onwards, TikTok has to help promote Nepal’s tourism; invest in digital literacy efforts; support to uplift Nepal’s public education system; and be mindful of the language used on its platform,” said Gurung.

“After TikTok assured the government that it would fulfil these conditions, we decided in principle to allow TikTok to resume operations in Nepal.”

“We’re excited to be able to continue enabling Nepali voices and creativity,” said a spokesperson for TikTok.

TikTok was banned in Nepal in November 2023 by the then prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government, on the grounds that it “disturbs social harmony and disrupts family structures and social relations,” according to former minister for communications and information technology Rekha Sharma.

At the time, there was no further discussion or clarity on what had triggered the ban.

There were dozens of protests in Kathmandu when the ban was announced, with several saying the ban had not only cut off a source of income for multiple influencers, it also shut down an avenue for free speech.

“My life changed a lot because of TikTok, a lot. So many recognise me because of TikTok wherever I go,” said 39-year-old Nepalese influencer Anjana Aryal, whose TikTok had nearly 600,000 followers.

Aryal made close to $3,000 (£2,287) in a single month from endorsement deals and even sold her own brand of pickles, all of which came to a stop once the ban came into effect.

“People were earning, running businesses or just being entertained on TikTok. Everyone has been affected now and they don’t know what to do,” she said.

China’s ByteDance-owned TikTok is banned in several countries, including India and Afghanistan, with the UK, Australia, and the European Union restricting its use.

It was reported last year when the ban took effect that more than 1,600 TikTok-related cyber crime cases had been registered over the last four years in Nepal.

According to the Internet Service Providers’ Association of Nepal (ISPAN), TikTok had about 2.2 million users in Nepal.

While TikTok has not managed to catch up to the number of users on Meta’s social media apps – Facebook and Instagram – it is far more popular with users between the ages of 16 and 24.

Manish Adhikari, another influencer whose content followed cars and Nepalese start-ups, said he had moved to Instagram, but was struggling to fulfil his endorsement deals with brands because his views and audience were nowhere close to the reach he enjoyed on TikTok.

“Brands started to call me … and I wondered if I was getting out of business, is my work going to stop?” Adhikari said.

Earlier this year, researchers aimed to figure out how TikTok’s algorithm worked, in an effort to understand its appeal.

However, researchers weren’t able to figure it out entirely, referring to the platform’s algorithm as a “black box”.

“The algorithm is such a black box to the public and regulators. And to some extent, it probably is to TikTok itself,” Franziska Roesner, a computer scientist at the University of Washington, said.