Summaries

Synopsis

ACP Sanjay Kumar (John Abraham) is informed that his team has cornered 5 university students in L-18, Batla House, who might have been involved in the 13 September 2008 Delhi bombings, the responsibility for which was claimed by the terrorist organization "Indian Mujahideen" (IM). The serial bombings had claimed 400 lives and left 1000 citizens injured.Sanjay is a highly decorated officer and has won 6 medals already. Delhi Police is under a lot of pressure to bring the IM terrorists to justice. Due to his dedication to duty, Sanjay's marriage with his wife Nandita is under severe strain.

Sanjay heads the special cell of Delhi Police and receives the call on 19th September 2008. Sanjay orders not to engage until he arrives, but a restless Inspector Kishan Kumar Verma / KK (Ravi Kishan) proceeds with some officers. Sanjay arrives and upon hearing the gunshots, decides to engage. The building is cleared, and KK is found shot down. Sanjay enters the room and there's more shooting, as a result of which 2 students (Adil Ameen (Kranti Prakash Jha) & Sadiq Khan (Niranjan Jadhao)) end up dead, 2 escape (Dilshad Ahmed and Javed Ali (Faizan Khan)) and Tufail Khan (Alok Pandey) is arrested alive.

Batla House was in the middle of a Muslim neighborhood and Sanjay calls for backup as a large crowd had gathered outside and evacuating the criminals would have been a major challenge without it. Already the religious leaders of the area were on loudspeakers telling the gathered crowd that Delhi Police is unfairly targeting Muslim youth as a pattern.Sanjay protects his team in front of the Police Commissioner (Manish Chaudhari) and says that his team was only following his orders. The commissioner argues that the orders were only to observe and investigate and was livid that the operation turned into a media spectacle.KK is shifted to a hospital and undergoes surgery, but later succumbs to his injuries.

Sanjay now starts facing the heat from media and politicians who start billing the encounter as a fake one.There was talk of inter department rivalry between Sanjay and KK. Sanjay was the new ACP who liked to rely on forensic methods & electronic surveillance to apprehend criminals, but KK was old school and believed in direct action. Sanjay was collaborative in nature and wanted cops to learn from each other.

Unfortunately, the media is joined by the whole nation in condemning the Delhi Police and everyone starts demanding justice for the students who were supposedly killed to account for the bombings. Sanjay's wife Nandita (Mrunal Thakur), a news anchor, is however unwilling to accept this and decides to stay with Sanjay, who soon becomes diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, frequently hallucinating about getting shot by the terrorists. Nandita somehow stops him whenever he becomes suicidal.

Sanjeev now starts looking for the missing Dilshad and Javed and finds one of them to be hiding in Nizampur, Uttar Pradesh. Sanjay is informed by his senior that he would be awarded for the encounter and that he must celebrate. Realizing he's not been told where to celebrate, he heads to Nizampur where he manages to find Dilshad (Sahidur Rahman), one of the fugitives. Everyone tries to stop Sanjay, who chases, beats up and almost arrests Dilshad, only to be cornered by the politicians and public who let him escape but without Dilshad.

After being awarded the President Medal, Sanjay begins his hunt again. His boss tells Sanjay to be smart and not return to Nizampur but to lure Dilshad out. This time, through Dilshad's girlfriend Huma (Nora Fatehi), Sanjay tricks him into coming to Nepal. Sanjay had been conducting extensive surveillance on Dilshad for many weeks and knew everything about his relationship with Huma.Dilshad is planning to leave for Dubai via Nepal (and plans to take Huma with him) and Sanjay plans to nab him in Nepal by using Huma. He knows that Huma is an illegal Russian immigrant and threatens to deport her, unless she delivers Dilshad to him.

Huma tells Sanjay how Dilshad is expecting a call from Dubai. So, Sanjay gets his colleague to call (pretending to be from Dubai) instead and give instructions for pickup in Nepal.He teams up with his officers once again, and sends a van to pick up Dilshad, as a part of his plan. The latter, however, sends someone else to check for anything suspicious. Sanjay runs to stop his officers from engaging upon realizing Dilshad's not in the van and lets it flee. Learning of nothing suspicious, Dilshad informs the van driver he'd depart the next day, and upon landing in Nepal, is stopped, thrashed and arrested by Sanjay and his team.

The court proceedings begin, where the opposing lawyer Shailesh Arya (Rajesh Sharma) brings up arguments to counter Sanjay's truth and creates a fake encounter story, as per which KK and his men brought the students in L18, tortured and decided to kill them when they were ordered not to do so, following which KK was shot by one of his officers. The lawyer also proves that nobody except the dead KK actually saw Dilshad escape from the apartment where the shootout took place.

Sanjay, however, brings out the truth that actually his officers had been closely watching the students and realized they belonged to the Indian Mujahideen. The real shootout then plays out, showcasing KK and his team engaging when the students fire, and the very fact that KK died gives Sanjay's argument a strong support when he tells everyone that no officer has ever died in a fake encounter. His arguments convince the court to sentence the 2 terrorists to life imprisonment, while the last one somehow escapes the country.

While sections of the media still oppose the ruling and believe the police to be culprits, a video clip that surfaced in 2016 featured a confession from the terrorist who had escaped the encounter, about he managed to do so and later join the ISIS, further confirming the credibility of the encounter.