Sartaj Singh
With Anubhav Sinha and Trishant Srivastava at the helm, ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ chronicles the true story of the 1999 Indian Airlines hijacking. With impeccable expertise from its writing and research team, the Netflix show manages to stick very closely to real-life events despite the demands of dramatization inherent in the medium. Among the key plotlines of the show are the efforts of intelligence agencies to fill the information vacuum surrounding the incident. Key among them is RAW, headed by V K Agarwal (Aditya Srivastava). Initially caught unaware, Agarwal and his agents quickly get to work and are able to piece together all the identities, motivations, and plans of the hijackers.
Agarwal also wisely decides to exclude the name of one of his agents from the released list of passengers, not only saving face for the organization but likely saving his life. Knowing that the show is based on Devi Sharan and Sringjoy Chowdhury’s 2000 book, ‘Flight Into Fear,’ we expect that all characters, while fictional, likely have direct links to real-life individuals involved in the hijacking. The quick-minded V K Agarwal and his central role in leading the intelligence hunt leave us with questions about his real-life counterpart.
V K Agarwal is Based on Former Head of RAW, A.S. Dulat
The character of V K Agarwal, charmingly essayed by Aditya Srivastava, actually stands in for the RAW chief at the time, A.S. Dulat. Known as a spymaster and Mr. Kashmir, he began his career in the Indian Police Service in 1965, joining the IB four years later. He served as the Joint Director in Kashmir, from 1988 until 1990. He took charge as Chief of RAW in 1999, just a few months before the hijacking of IC 814. Dulat is also the first head of an Indian intelligence agency to write a memoir.
“It sounded simple enough to me, but I was definitely nervous,” wrote Dulat in the memoir, ‘A Life in the Shadows: A Memoir,’ about becoming the head of RAW. “Every chief faces a hard time at some point or another. But my main crisis would come only later that year, a few months into my time as chief of the R&AW, when IC – 814 was hijacked. Questions swirled about the nature and extent of the R&AW’s knowledge of the event. It was a difficult time, that week.”
The DG of Punjab Police was Dulat’s Batchmate
True to the show’s depiction, Dulat knew the Punjab Police DG, Sarabjit Singh, as his batchmate. The RAW chief later revealed his frustrations with the indecisiveness, stating that the plane could have been grounded in Amritsar. The Netflix series follows a similar pattern of decision-making uncertainty, where the Punjab Police Commandos are standing by for an operation but no orders are given.
“The main goof – up happened in Amritsar, where the flight was on the ground for a long time,” revealed Dulat in his memoir. “We should have acted then and we didn’t. The fault lay squarely with Delhi. Later, of course, we blamed the Punjab Police and the director general of police (DG), Punjab. But the thing was that the DG (Punjab) — who happened to be a batchmate of mine — didn’t want to take on that kind of responsibility without word from Delhi. Someone from Delhi should have given that word.” The then-Chief of RAW confirms the narrative, but there is another possible factor that he does not mention. There was a RAW officer on the flight who had been going home from Kathmandu, Shashi Bhushan Singh Tomar.
Dulat Prefers to Keep Mum Regarding His Agent’s Presence on IC 814
Despite decades having passed since the incident, Dulat still prefers not to speak about the debacle of senior RAW agent Tomar having been present on the hijacked IC 814 flight. According to former RAW officer RK Yadav’s book, ‘Mission R&AW,’ Tomar was the first secretary of the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu and had been informed by his junior, U.V. Singh, of a potential hijacking plan at the airport. However, Yadav claims that Tomar suppressed the information believing it to be false, and unwittingly got caught up in the same hijacking that he had been warned about.
What made his presence on the aircraft even more significant was that he is the brother-in-law of N. K. Singh, then Secretary to the Prime Minister. Speculative chroniclers believe that one of the main reasons for the Punjab commandos not storming the plane was because the safety of Tomar had to be ensured. When Dulat was asked by a reporter about his omission of Tomar from his writings surrounding the hijacking, he responded, “Certain things are best not talked about.” In a later interview, he would go on to deny that Tomar’s presence had anything to do with the CMG’s decisonmaking.
Dulat Speaks in the Media and Dabbles in Politics
Former Special Director of the Indian Intelligence Bureau & former Secretary of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) Shri A.S. Dulat joins Shri @RahulGandhi during the #BharatJodoYatra. A.S. Dulat also served as an advisor on J&K in the Vajpayee government after his retirement. pic.twitter.com/fMu6iaN7am
— Congress (@INCIndia) January 3, 2023
After retirement from RAW in 2000, Dulat was appointed advisor on Kashmir in the PMO and served there until 2004. He was praised for his pro-discourse policy. When Article 370 was abrogated in 2019, revoking the special status given to Kashmir, he spoke against it, even disagreeing with NSA Ajit Doval, who he holds in high regard. He has since written his memoir and regular opinion pieces. He made a political statement by joining the Leader of the Opposition and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2023. In his writings, the 84-year-old isn’t afraid to sharply critique policy decisions made by the government, especially when it comes to Kashmir.
Read More: IC 814: What Happened to the Plane? Did it Fly Again? Where is it Now?
