Diksha Sundriyal
In Netflix’s ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack,’ the course of a two-hour flight from Kathmandu to Delhi extends to eight days when five hijackers take over the plane, forcing the pilots to take a new path. It is later discovered by the intelligence agencies that the plan had been in motion for a while and was meant to target the release of three dangerous terrorists from the captivity of Indian authorities. The turn of events works in the favour of the hijackers, and the show reveals what happens by the end of the eight-day hijacking plot; the fate of the hijackers since then is not revealed.
Sunny Ahmed Qazi AKA Burger is Believed to be Dead
Identified as a resident of the Defence Area in Karachi, Sunny Ahmed Qazi AKA Burger is remembered as one of the more lenient hijackers. While all passengers agree that none of the hijackers were particularly kind to them, Burger is described as the one who tended to create lighter moments during the hijacking, though he could just as easily slip into the serious mode. Captain Devi Sharan revealed that Burger would indulge in singing, joking, and chatting with the passengers and being more adept at getting their guard down.
One of the passengers, Pooja Kataria, remembers celebrating her birthday on the plane during the hijacking. When she requested Burger to let her and her husband, Rakesh, go, he smiled at her and gave her an apple (in place of a cake) and a knife. Reportedly, he also gave her a Kashmiri Pashmina shawl with his autograph signed and best wishes written on it. But even for his light-hearted moments on the plane, Burger was an integral part of carrying out the plot of hijacking, and this isn’t the last time he was indulged in a terrorist attack against India.
On December 13, 2001, the Indian Parliament witnessed one of the worst attacks in its history, perpetrated by Jaish-e-Mohammad, founded by Masood Azhar, who was freed in exchange for the passengers of IC 814. The attack ended following a 50-minute shootout, where the Indian forces killed five of the terrorists, one of whom has been identified as Burger. Reportedly, the plan went wrong when Burger didn’t receive the call for confirmation, which he was supposed to receive from the leader of their mission. In the absence of the phone call, he and his fellow terrorists went forward with the attack, which went awry by the minute and ended with them failing to carry out their intended plot and dying at the end of it. While the confirmation of his death is generally agreed upon, reportedly, there are conflicting accounts that claim that the one who died that day was not Burger but some other terrorist.
Shahid Akhtar Sayed and Ibrahim Akhtar are Believed to be the Only Hijackers Still Alive
The hijacking of IC 814 was masterminded by the group that held affiliation with a Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist group named Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM). All five hijackers belonged to this group, but Shahid Akhtar Sayed AKA Doctor and Ibrahim Akhtar (or Athar or Azhar) AKA Chief were the ones involved in the plotting and led the highjacking. Reportedly, these two are the only ones who are believed to be alive, according to counter-terrorism experts. While the movements of Ibrahim Akhtar remain vague, Shahid Akhtar Sayed is believed to be in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa area of Pakistan. Both the hijackers have since been involved with one or the other terrorist plot on Indian soil.
Apart from Doctor, Shahid Sayeed Akhtar’s aliases include S.A.Sayeed, Moti, and Khalid. He is known to be a resident of Gulshan Iqbal in Karachi. Known as Chief in the IC 814 hijacking, Ibrahim Akhtar’s aliases include Ibrahim Athar/Azhar, Ahmed Ali Mohd Ali Shaikh, Javed Amjad Siddiqui, and A.A. Shaikh. The brother of Masood Azhar, Chief, is also the father of Mohammad Umar Farooq, who is known to have been one of the main perpetrators behind the 2019 Pulwama attack. Both Doctor and Chief were added to the list of individual terrorists by the Indian Government in 2020 under the then-amended Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), and with both of them still at large, the authorities are on the lookout for them to prevent any other terrorist attack and the loss of innocent lives.
Read More: IC 814 The Kandahar Hijack: Are Indrani and Chhaya Based on Real Air Hostesses?
