Is ‘India’s Most Wanted’ About Terrorist Yasin Bhatkal’s Arrest?

Filmmaker Raj Kumar Gupta opens up about ‘India’s Most Wanted’ and his love for stories rooted in reality.

Raj Kumar Gupta with Arjun Kapoor on the sets of India’s Most Wanted.

(Photo Courtesy: Raapchik Films)

Last year, filmmaker Raj Kumar Gupta returned to theatres with the Ajay Devgn starrer Raid, and the film went on to become a Rs 100 + crore super hit. Gupta is now all set to unveil his latest titled India’s Most Wanted with Arjun Kapoor in the lead. Based on true events that lead to the capture of ‘India’s Osama’, India’s Most Wanted looks like a taut thriller that promises to be a mass entertainer.

Here’s the filmmaker talking about his new thriller inspired by true events:

Is ‘India’s Most Wanted’ Based on Yasin Bhatkal’s Arrest?

“This is inspired by true events. People have to come to the film to see what the film is about, what is the time span that one is talking about, what is the relevance or the context of ‘India’s Osama’ in the film, what is the context of a ‘Ghost Who Bombs’ in the film. I would leave it for the film to answer all these questions and not say more on this topic.”

Are Films Rooted In Reality Your Forte?

“I try to make films about something that touches me, something that inspires me. Maybe emotionally, intellectually, something that I have read or seen or could be real or is real. So those are my inspirations. It might not be something that has made a big headline, but something even small, something that has an emotional connect to it. Something which makes me feel that this could happen in this world, the world that we live in, the people that I meet, the situation that I could have been in as a human being. So those are the things that give me a sense of reality, gives me a sense of identification.”

Raj Kumar Gupta and Arjun Kapoor on the sets of India’s Most Wanted.(Photo Courtesy: Raapchik Films)

Portraying Intelligence Officers and Agents Realistically

“When you’re dealing with an intelligence bureau person or a RAW person, their basic requirement is being discreet. If you’re on a mission, you can never let people know. You can’t announce your arrival, because once you announce your arrival, the departure won’t be certain. They’re very real people like you and me, very next-door guys. They might be living next to you and catching the biggest terrorists or criminals, but you might not know. You might not know that they are the people who have saved a lot of lives. And those lives could’ve been mine, could’ve been yours.”

What’s Special About ‘India’s Most Wanted’

“I think what was significant for me in this story was that these 5-6 ordinary men, very unlikely people who went and caught this guy without firing a single bullet, without guns, without ammunition, by pooling in their own money, and there was a certain human emotion attached to it.”

Shooting at Real Locations vs Studio Sets

“There’s no substitute to a real location. From my first film onwards, like if you see Aamir, I have always loved the energy that a real location gets you, the imperfectness that the real location gets you when you’re shooting, because nothing is under your control. It’s not that you don’t get what you want, you get what you get. And in that getting you have to make sure that you’ve got what you wanted. It is very difficult, it is not easy to shoot and with Arjun Kapoor, who is fairly well-known, even Rajiv Khandelwal was well-known. So with them it becomes very difficult. But, I always get charged when I have to shoot in a real location. It has a different texture, you can't replace it. The imperfections of it, you can't replace. Lots of times you would see that the shot would not look perfect but that is what makes that frame, that is what makes that scene for me.”