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The writer of the film,Mohanish Sharan,says the terror attacks disturbed him greatly and his heart went out to the police: “That is when I decided to write the film from their perspective.” The film has been directed by S P Munishwar and stars Homi Wadia (as Hemant Karkare),Ashish Vidyarthi (as Tukaram Ombale),Sudesh Berry (as Vijay Salaskar) and Ashok Kulkarni (as Ashok Kamte).

Sharan followed news reports and studied footage from news channels to build the sequence of events and has mostly stuck to reality. “With different channels and news sources giving varied accounts,it was a bit tough to establish which was accurate. So I had to broaden my research,” he says.

The movie shows Ajmal Kasab (played by debutant Rajan Verma) training at a LeT camp in Pakistan and then follows his journey — along with that of nine others — to India . The main characters are the security personnel and their families as the film talks about the anguish brought upon them by the terror strikes. Sharan had ended his story with Karkare,Salaskar and Kamte being honoured by the Ashok Chakra and Kasab awaiting trial in the jail. “But when Kasab was pronounced guilty and given the death sentence,we changed the ending during post-production. It now shows Kasab being hanged.” The film,releasing next week,is hoping to cash in on the interest the case has generated as the nation awaits the date of Kasab’s execution to be announced.

Similarly,filmmaker Avtar Bhogal is hoping that the recent spate of honour killings will be able to draw audience to the theatres for his film,Honour Killing,which releases in August. When a journalist was allegedly murdered in Jharkhand recently,there was a nationwide outcry against it. That apart,the cases of honour killings and the diktats of the Khap panchayats have been in the news. Through the story of a Sikh girl and a Muslim boy,Bhogal’s film focuses on honour killings that reportedly take place in the UK. “I divide my time between England and Mumbai. Over the years,I have realised that the number of such killings has not gone down in both these places. I wanted to address this topic,hoping that the UK government will take notice and act upon it,” he says.

Both Sharan and Bhogal havd introduced elements of fiction and drama. “In Ashok Chakra,30 per cent of the story has been fictionalised,” says Sharan. Bhogal too has Bollywoodised his story,with songs and dance and young love.