Airlift Portrays The Wrong Story, Claim Victims

Viju Cherian one of the victims of Kuwait attack during Saddam's invasion says that the filmmakers are literally “creating” history. Viju who was a kid when the incident happened disagrees with the portrayal of “Indian government as callous and incompetent”. According to him, the makers have taken many liberties with the facts.

He says, “The then foreign minister IK Gujral met Saddam himself to negotiate the rescue, even if he was broadly panned for his pains - a photograph showing the two in an embrace quickly became infamous”. In an interview with a leading Hindi daily, Sureshmal Mathur, Indian embassy’s second secretary in Kuwait during Saddam's invasion, also stated, “The truth is, no NRI helped us evacuate Indians from Kuwait. The entire operation was financed and executed by the Indian government”.

On the other hand, when asked about Ranjit Katyal, the character he played in the film, Akshay Kumar said, “He’s still alive and a big businessman today, living in Kuwait. But I didn’t meet him. Raja Menon (the director) met him and spoke to him over the phone. But my character isn’t completely based on one person. There were three or four people like him, who were involved in the operation. We’ve combined all their stories for the character but Ranjit Katyal was the main guy. We’ve changed his name in the film. I should bring to your notice that in 1990, he was a multimillionaire but he lost everything, got everybody back to India from Kuwait and today, he’s a multimillionaire again. He’s earned back all his money”.

Source: wordpress.com