Aakrosh 2010

It’s said to be based on a true story, though unsubstantiated. Three friends from Delhi vanish in the small village of Jhanjhar, and two months pass with no clues. The disappearance sparks intense media coverage and student protests pressing for action. In response, the government orders a CBI inquiry led by Sidhant Chaturvedi, Akshaye Khanna, and Pratap Kumar, Ajay Devgn, to uncover the truth. They quickly discover that local police and other authorities are entangled with Shool Sena, a criminal network that uses intimidation to block the investigation. The case is met with stubborn resistance from Ajatshatru Singh, Paresh Rawal, a ruthless officer who misuses power to thwart progress, while many locals remain wary of cooperating.

One of the missing youths, Dinu—who had relatives in the village and had come to visit his sister Jamunia, Reema Sen, and her husband Rukmilaal with two friends for Dusshera—had not reached them. Jamunia and Rukmilaal deny that the boys ever arrived in Jhanjhar. That night Rukmilaal is kidnapped.

The investigators locate the car used by the trio near the village river, clearly staged as an accident, lowered into the water by a crane. Sidhant tracks down the crane’s owner and is about to arrest him when a man in a jeep runs him down. That man later turns up at the police station, and Pratap refuses to hand him over to Sidhant. The case gains momentum with the help of Geeta, Bipasha Basu, Ajatshatru’s wife and Pratap’s former love, and with the discovery that Roshni’s SIM was found in the recovered car. Sidhant must call in police reinforcements from Delhi to press the case when Omkar Sukur, a powerful villager who used to be a minister and now controls administration, resists.

Geeta’s involvement deepens the stakes, and the investigation reveals that Dinu was a Dalit whose plight drew protests, which are brutally suppressed by the police. A Dalit village is attacked, Jamunia’s son is killed, and Jhamunia’s pain intensifies the urgency of the search. Jhamunia is also connected to Geeta’s circle of friends, heightening the tension as the truth edges closer. Geeta convinces Jhamunia to talk to Pratap, but Jhamunia is kidnapped. Sidhant and Pratap track her down and find her on the roadside, her tongue cut.

The truth behind the disappearances is finally teased out when Geeta reveals that she witnessed the killings: Omkar and Ajatshatru were behind the violence, having brought the three youths home, with Dinu killed by Omkar and the remaining two killed by Ajatshatru. The evidence allows the CBI to recover the bodies. Ajatshatru learns Geeta helped the CBI, and he assaults her in private. Enraged, Pratap uses his tech edge to trap the criminals by hacking their phones and capturing their illicit activities on CCTV. In the climactic moment, he maims Ajatshatru with a razor in a quiet salon, and the gang’s final witness is persuaded. Shool Sena’s violence escalates as they attack the witness, but the plan still moves toward justice.

In the end, the criminals are sentenced, and Jhamunia takes matters into her own hands, using a weapon given by Sidhant to kill the remaining culprits, delivering a brutal but definitive turn of justice in the wake of the investigation.