Following the controversial teaser, director Raj Kumar Gupta released the official trailer of ‘India’s Most Wanted’, starring Arjun Kapoor, and Rajesh Sharma etc. Based on the exploits of the Indian intelligence officers that led to the daredevil capture of ‘India’s Osama’, Yasin Bhatkal, the movie is a fictional account of how a bunch of officers, led by Arjun’s character Prabhat enter Nepal without any official support and fight against all odds to bring back the dreaded terrorist without using any kind of weapons.
While the teaser came under criticism for trying to relate quotes from Gita to justify terrorism, the trailer presented a different view altogether. Apart from depicting the sadistic joy the character based on Yasin Bhatkal feels while justifying his deeds, the movie also focuses on how the ragtag bunch of officers had to fight against all odds while pursuing their object: Yasin Bhatkal, without any kind of official support from either the Indian government or the top brass of the Indian intelligence.
For those unaware, Muhammad Ahmed Siddibappa aka Yasin Bhatkal is a dreaded terrorist who belongs to the dreaded terrorist cell Indian Mujahideen. He has been found guilty of executing several serial bomb blasts across India from 2006-2010, be it the Mumbai local train blasts of 2006, or the Ahmedabad bombings of 2008, or the 2008 Delhi bomb blasts, or even the infamous German Bakery blasts that took place in Pune in 2010. He also had grand plans for a nuclear attack on the state of Gujarat, especially towns like Surat, for which he had also prepared posters, asking the Muslim residents to evacuate in the situation of such attack.
As such, he was nicknamed ‘India’s Osama’ and was among the top 15 terrorists on the list of Delhi Police. Following the German Bakery blasts, Yasin Bhatkal began living in hiding in Nepal, posing as a Unani doctor, Shahrukh. For all his so-called bravado, Yasin Bhatkal used to roam to and from Bihar and Nepal concealed in a burqa.
It wasn’t until 2013, when a group of officers related to Intelligence Bureau, in a joint operation with Nepal Police, nabbed Yasin along with one of his associates on 28 August 2013. However, nabbing him was far from easy for the Indian authorities. According to the revelations of an intelligence officer, who wished to stay anonymous, the then UPA government was in no mood to even listen to their pleas, forget permitting them for the concerned operation.
This is one key element that has been depicted extremely well in the trailer of ‘India’s Most Wanted’, where the top brass of the Indian intelligence is under constant pressure from the then government so as to not let the officers execute their mission. Imagine the irony, when the same UPA government, now in opposition, has the audacity to say that they are more concerned about national security than the current NDA government led by PM Narendra Modi.
To be honest, the operation to nab Yasin Bhatkal was almost a private affair, since the officers involved in this operation anticipated backlash on the lines of what military intelligence official, Lt. Col. Prasand Shrikant Purohit and Major Ramesh Upadhyay had suffered in 2008. Following the Malegaon bomb blasts, Maharashtra ATS, at the behest of the then UPA government, not only illegally detained them, but also tried to create the hoax of saffron terrorism in order to shield the actual perpetrators, making the lives of the said suspects a living hell.
It is in this respect that one of the officers involved in the operation said, ‘We are ready to go to jail, but won’t let this monster roam free.’ The same sentiment is echoed by Arjun Kapoor as he says in one instance during the trailer, ‘500 km aaye hain uske liye. Ab 50 meter aur andar jaane se koi nahin rok sakta. Chahe uske liye jail jaana pade, ya jaan deni pade.’ [We’ve covered 500 kms for him, no can stop us from entering the next 50 meters. We don’t care if we have to go jail or die.]
To be honest, with the ‘India’s Most Wanted’ trailer, Raj Kumar Gupta has reinvigorated the interest of the audience in the pains our intelligence agencies had to take in order to nab the terrorists, despite having no support from the Congress-led UPA government, who were ready to sell the nation for the sake of support from the minority communities. Come 24th May, and ‘India’s Most Wanted’ may pull out some more skeletons from the cupboard of the UPA government.