Deadline: Sirf 24 Ghante 2006

In Mumbai, a renowned heart surgeon, Dr. Viren Goenka, Rajit Kapoor, lives with his wife, Sanjana, Konkona Sen Sharma, and their seven-year-old daughter, Anishka, Jhanak Shukla. Their life feels blessed when Viren is honored with a prestigious award for his contributions to medicine, and he eagerly looks forward to traveling to New Delhi to receive it. He promises to celebrate Anishka’s birthday on his return, wrapping their hopes in a calm, hopeful future. The domestic warmth is palpable, with each member playing a gentle, supportive role in a life that seems to be on the cusp of new possibilities.

But the first signs of trouble arrive on a quiet day when Anishka encounters a creepy figure named Krish, Irrfan Khan, inside their home. Krish’s voice is calm and his demand blunt: Anishka will stay safe only if Sanjana and Viren obey his orders. The danger spreads quickly as Krish’s accomplices escalate the pressure. Roohi, Sandhya Mridul, keeps Viren confined in a hotel, while Kabir, Zakir Hussain, holds Anishka at a remote location. The kidnappers implement strict half-hour checks via cell phones and set a bold ransom of Rs. 3 crores, pushing the family into a harrowing race against time.

With fear and desperation pushing them to act, Viren and Sanjana realize that complying with the kidnappers’ terms might be their only chance to save their daughter. Viren sinks into a relentless scramble to secure the money, mortgaging everything that stands between him and a potential life-saving rescue: his dream hospital project and the house that supports his family. Across 24 hours, he mobilizes every resource at his disposal to gather the exact sum demanded. As the clock ticks, the tension tightens like a closing fist, and the couple clings to the hope that the plan might still bring their child back unharmed.

Yet the situation spirals further when the kidnappers vanish with both the money and their daughter. The sense of loss hits hard, and the city’s investigators sift through clues that seem to lead nowhere, leaving Viren and Sanjana fearful for Anishka’s safety. In the wake of distraught uncertainty, a chilling realization begins to crystallize: their tormentors’ motive may extend beyond simple ransom. The truth slowly emerges — this is not a mere financial grab but a calculated act of revenge.

As the narrative unfolds toward a tense resolution, the family learns that the captors’ goal was to teach a broader lesson about the medical field and the ethics of care. The tension loosens only when Anishka is returned and the money is recovered, but the cost of the ordeal reverberates through every character. By the end, Viren and Sanjana confront the message behind the frightening ordeal: the kidnappers sought to remind the medical profession of its nobility and to confront Viren with the consequences of placing money above the human touch that medicine is meant to embody.

This story intertwines a family’s fear with a stark meditation on professional integrity, where love and desperation collide with the hard realities of crime, and where the ultimate reward is not just the safe return of a child but a sobering reckoning about what truly matters in healing and humanity.