Ground Zero

Ground Zero is an action thriller about Indian Armed Forces’ hunt to eliminate the dreaded terrorist Ghazi Baba. Ghazi was responsible for not only ending dozens of innocent lives, but he also masterminded the outrageous terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001 that left multiple security personnel dead. Let’s dive into the ending of Ground Zero, which is explained here, its plot, cast, release date, and more. The movie stars Emraan Hashmi as a Border Security Force (BSF) officer Narendra Nath Dhar Dubey. A real person, Dubey was the man who led an anti-terror operation against Ghazi. The said operation ended with Ghazi and his associates’ deaths but also casualties on the BSF side.

Narendra Dubey (Emraan Hashmi) is getting his daughter ready for school. She’s reluctant to go; the ‘gun waale bhaiyya’ on the bus is scary, she says. Who would you rather have on the bus, her father asks with a smile. Santa Claus, the girl immediately replies. Later, when Narendra, the BSF’s top man in Srinagar, is asked why he risks his life, he says he hopes to fulfil this wish of his daughter’s. Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar’s Ground Zero opens its eyes—but only a little. It recognises that a child heading out every day with an armed soldier is scarring. Fair enough. But that girl, young though she is, must have some idea that the gun is there for her protection. Similarly, there must be a child in her class who sees the same guns every day. Even if, in her short life, they haven’t been pointed at her, she must instinctively know that they might be one day. This child Ground Zero doesn’t want to contemplate.

It is impossible to watch this film set in Kashmir without keeping in the mind the tragedy that unfolded in Pahalgam, a couple of days ago. Ground Zero, which draws inspiration from the valor of BSF officer Narendra Nath Dhar Dubey, is set within the context of the Kashmir conflict, albeit during a different period.

The release of Ground Zero has been coloured, inescapably, by the deadly terror attack in Pahalgam, which claimed at least 26 lives and has escalated tensions in the subcontinent. Although the film, drawn from real events, is set in Kashmir in the early 2000s, its climactic showdown — a late-night raid on a terrorist hideout by Border Security Force (BSF) jawans — is bound to feed the current mood. This may work to the film’s advantage, firming up its theatrical prospects even as it muddles its intent. There are nuances here that many viewers, under the circumstances, are likely to ignore. There was a hint of this in the film’s trailer. “Is only the land of Kashmir ours, or its people too?” asks BSF commandant Narendra Nath Dhar Dubey (Emraan Hashmi). It is an important question to pose in this heated atmosphere, with allegations of complicity directed at the Kashmiri people, not to mention threats and attacks against Kashmiri students in other parts of the country. Ground Zero stands apart from works like The Kashmir Filesand Article 370. It is closer in spirit to Shershaah: a patriotic, simple-minded biopic, with a passing yet palpable concern for local lives.

An intensive search-and-combing operation which results in the capture of a dreaded terrorist in Srinagar could be the one-line theme of several similar films in the past. The difference with ‘Ground Zero’, which calls itself a ‘work of fiction based on real-life events’, are two-fold. First, it releases the same week of the Pahalgam tragedy, whose consequences will be felt for a long time to come. Second, it steers clear of the disturbing jingoism that has been part and parcel of such films, focussing instead on the tough life of the BSF jawans and other security forces in the conflict-stricken Kashmir valley Emran Hashmi plays BSF officer Narendra Nath Dhar Dubey, who managed to locate and take out terrorist kingpin Ghazi Baba and his accomplices in 2003. It was a time when PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee had visited the valley, in the midst of rising terrorist activities: there are glimpses of the 2001 attack on Parliament in the film.

The timing is unintentionally perfect. Emraan Hashmi starrer military biopic Ground Zero releases just days after the horrific Pahalgam terror attack in Kashmir. While the film is set in the early 2000s and talks of a BSF commandant, Narendra Nath Dhar Dubey, the film is set in Kashmir – a state that is being discussed widely at present. The situation from the early 2000s to the present day may vary, but the enemy – terrorism remains the same. But despite its relevance to the nation’s current mood, Ground Zero is a typical military biopic that Bollywood has churned out in dozens since time immemorial. Does the film leave a defining impact? Let’s find out.

While there have been scores of films made on the Indian Army and the country’s Air Force, it is quite baffling that Hindi mainstream cinema has hardly explored the exemplary bravery of the unsung heroes of the BSF. The Border Security Force, aptly known as ‘The First Line of Defence’, is the focus of Ground Zero, this Friday’s release in theatres, and a biopic of sorts of Narendra Nath Dhar Dubey. It was NND’s sharpness, his eye on the eye of the fish focus, and the passion and patriotism that a man in uniform has by default for his country, that resulted in the killing of Ghazi Baba, the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed and the man responsible for scores of terrorist attacks, most significantly the Parliament carnage of 2001.