'Father was on hijacked plane,' EAM Jaishankar recalls IC 814 controversy

External Affairs Minister (EAM) Dr S Jaishankar on Friday (Sep 13), shared his personal experience in connection with a hijacking incident of 1984, saying that he was a young officer in the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and while serving, he found out that his father was on thehijacked plane.

Jaishankar was speaking at a community event on Friday in Geneva, Switzerland.

He revealed this whileansweringquestions about the recently released Netflix series on the 1999 hijacking of flight IC814.

When asked about his opinion on the Netflix series IC814: The Kandahar Hijack, which according to the questioner, portrayed the government and bureaucracy "in poor light" during the crisis.

Jaishankar said, "In 1984 there was a hijacking", and continued explaining how as a young officer, he was part of the team tasked with handling the situation.

The EAM further explained how he was part of the team tasked with handling the situation, adding that as a son, he faced the surreal situation of discovering that his father was one of the passengers on the hijacked flight.

"I rang up my mother, actually, to tell her, 'Look, I can't come. There's a hijacking,'" he recalled.

"And then I discovered, my father was on the flight," he said, speaking of his father, K. Subrahmanyam, a senior IAS officer and a well-known commentator on strategic issues.

The flight, travelling from New Delhi to Srinagar was hijacked mid-air and was taken to Dubai. Later, the crisis endedwith all passengers, including Jaishankar's father, released unharmed.

(With inputs from agencies)