Jaishankar Reveals His Father Was on Hijacked Flight in 1984

Geneva, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday revealed that his father was on a hijacked flight in 1984 and said he had a unique window on "both sides" in such situations – the perspective of family members and those in the government.
Jaishankar was answering a question during a community event here about the recently released television series on the hijacking of IC814 in 1999.

Jaishankar went on to tell the audience how he was dealing with the hijack situation as a young officer then, and on the other side, he was part of that group of families who were putting pressure on the government.

One member of the audience caught up with him in the question and answer session following his speech to the Indian community and challenged him on some comments he made regarding the recently released series 'IC814: The Kandahar Hijack' on Netflix, which the Minister said, "showed 'the bureaucracy and the government dealing with hijacking in poor light.'"

With a disclaimer that he had not watched the series, Jaishankar went on to reveal his personal connection with the hijacking incident.

In 1984 there was a hijacking. I was a very young officer. I was part of the team that was dealing with it. I rang up my mother, actually, to tell her, 'Look, I can't come. There's a hijacking," he said elaborating how it was his turn to go home and feed his young son as his wife too was working.

And then I discovered, my father was on the flight. The flight ended up in Dubai. It's a long story, but fortunately, nobody got killed. It could have ended as a problem," he added.

On July 5, 1984, an Indian Airlines flight had been hijacked from Pathankot and taken to Dubai. More than 36 hours after that, 12 pro-Khalistani hijackers, it was revealed, surrendered to the authorities and released all 68 passengers and six crew members unhurt.

Jaishankar was an IFS officer and became a minister after his retirement. His father K Subrahmanyam was an IAS officer and a regular commentator on strategic issues.

"And it was interesting because on the one hand, I was part of the team which was working on the hijacking. On the other hand, I was part of the family members who are pressing the government for the hijacking. So actually, I have that very unique window on both sides, in that sense of the problem," he added.

"So, often these are situations and movie guys don't make the governments look good. The hero is supposed to look good. Then nobody would watch the movie and you got to accept that," he commented, evoking peals of laughter from the audience.