Trailer launch of Ground Zero marked by real war hero’s presence

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Ground Zero is the hitherto-untold story of courage and sacrifice inspired by a mission that was awarded BSF’s best operation in the last 50 years. The trailer of this film, which releases on April 25, was launched in Mumbai at Hotel Novotel on April 7.

Emraan Hashmi plays the reel counterpart of Narendra Nath Dhar Dubey, a Border Security Force (BSF) commander who tracked down a terror mastermind, Ghazi Baba. Inspired by a true event, the action thriller is set in Kashmir in the aftermath of the 2001 Indian Parliament attack.

Directed by Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar, the movie stars Emraan Hashmi in the lead. Sai Tamhankar and Zoya Hussain are the leading ladies. Sanchit Gupta and Priyadarshree Srivastava have written the movie, and Deoskar thanked them and principal producers Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar of Excel Entertainment for providing him the written material and also making the movie possible.

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A decorated BSF officer, Dubey led a two-year operation to eliminate Ghazi Baba (played by Shahbaz Khan), a top-ranking Jaish-e-Mohammed commander who, if it is believed, is said to masterminded the Parliament attack. He was killed in a joint BSF and Jammu & Kashmir police operation in 2003 in Srinagar.

Mukesh Tiwari, Deepak Parmesh, Lalit Prabhakar, Rockey Raina and Rahul Vohra are also in the cast.

Said Deoskar, “This story was not known to the public. That’s why we call such people “unsung heroes”, right? But the impact is phenomenal, so we thought that the story has to be out, and we must make it in the best possible way and to the best of our ability.”

Agreed Hashmi, “The way all this mission was planned and the final encounter was filmi se bhi filmi (almost fictional, like films)! Yes, it was extraordinary and incredible. This story has not been known in the public domain and we are lucky that we are telling something for the first time. Beyond all the obvious action, thrills and more, the beauty of this is that there is a strong emotional human story, a story of sacrifice. We did not even know that the Jaish-e-Mohammed was so destabilized that for the next 13 years, they could not do any operation on Indian soil!”

Dubey stated that in the 60 years of the BSF’s existence, this was the most remarkable mission of terrorism control. “We could not have imagined that 22 years later, a film on this scale would be mounted. I can only express my thanks to all those who made it possible and my homage to my co-soldier, Balbir Singh, who was martyred in the mission,” he said.

Asked by this reporter to comment on the sudden massive influx of Marathi directors in Hindi cinema, Deoskar said that was “nothing new” as Dadasaheb Phalke and V. Shantaram had been there since ages. I told him that the recent influx was of so many coming in all together and he later privately told me that this was a topic best not mentioned in public as “it was considered divisive”!!

Sai Tamhankar, who has acted in three Excel Entertainment productions within six months, also told me in reply to my observation that she loved the producers and team and they shared her passion: she has also done Agni and Dabba Cartel with them.

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