Mission Istaanbul 2008

Vikas Sagar, India’s top news reporter, is celebrated for chasing a story with fearless grit, even as his personal life fractures during a painful divorce from Anjali Sagar. His professional drive pushes him to accept a high-stakes offer to lead the India bureau of the controversial news channel Al Johara, and he travels to Istanbul to begin this new chapter. There, he crosses paths with Owais Hussain, a senior producer who lures him with the promise of bigger, more dangerous assignments and a chance to reshape the channel’s reach.

At a party in Istanbul, Vikas’s world expands beyond journalism as he meets Dr. Lisa Lobo, a doctor who is en route to a medical convention but is secretly working for RAW, hinting at a deeper game behind Al Johara’s gleaming façade. The channel’s enigmatic chief, Ghazni, cultivates a global footprint for the network, and his whisper to Vikas is simple: never set foot on the 13th floor—the Catacomb—where the truth he’s about to uncover could destabilize everything.

Meanwhile, Owais reveals a personal wish to quit his job and settle with his Irish girlfriend, a thread that underscores the undercurrents of risk and loyalty within Al Johara. Ghazni assigns the new head of the India bureau to cover a dangerous assignment: kidnapped journalists in Afghanistan held by Abu Nazir’s terrorists. On the ground, they encounter Khalil Nazir, Ghazni’s right hand, who uses fear and violence to push Vikas into submission. Khalil’s brutality escalates quickly, and he shoots Owais, shattering the balance Vikas is trying to sustain. In a tense escape, Vikas jumps onto a helicopter and watches Owais fall—an assault that leaves him rattled and reeling.

Back in Istanbul, Rizwan Khan Rizwan Khan, a former Turkish commando, appears at a funeral and drops a chilling warning: no senior Al Johara employee ever leaves quietly, and many who attempted to pursue opportunities outside the network met violent ends. His ominous list and the fear surrounding quitting push Vikas to dig deeper. A quiet investigation reveals a disturbing pattern: the names Rizwan cites match colleagues who disappeared or died soon after rumored departures. Vikas also begins noticing the faces of strangers who resemble suicide bombers—fragments of a larger web that ties Al Johara to acts of terrorism.

Compelled to learn the truth, Vikas ventures into the forbidden 13th floor and endures torture at the hands of Al Johara’s staff. Lisa arrives to save him, revealing a previously unknown layer of danger. Returning to his apartment, Vikas finds his passport, money, and documents missing, and a note warns that Ghazni’s men are on his trail. Rizwan reappears to help; he reveals that Abu Nazir is dead in truth, but Al Johara has kept the killer alive in videotaped form, and the man who actually killed Nazir was Rizwan himself, driven by loss from a blast that shattered his life.

With this revelation, Vikas and Rizwan forge a covert plan to expose Al Johara by infiltrating the 13th floor again. They cut through security, disable a guard who authorizes the lift, and fight their way toward the pen drive that holds incriminating data. Lisa aids their escape, but Ghazni’s men close in, and Khalil retrieves the drive only to be confronted by the trio. In the scramble, Lisa’s loyalty is tested; she had already warned Ghazni about Vikas’s activities, but her motive remains ambiguous until the end, and she dies after passing along a critical contact to the trio.

The chase intensifies as Anjali is captured and tortured by Ghazni’s forces, and the trio’s options begin to shrink. Still, they succeed in downloading the pen drive and plant a virus to corrupt Al Johara’s network, triggering a desperate bid to recover the data. Khalil and Ghazni close in, but Rizwan’s strategic move—an explosive device—blows open a path to safety and buys precious seconds for the protagonists. What follows is a brutal, protracted confrontation on the cataclysmic battleground between truth and power: Vikas, Rizwan, Khalil, and Ghazni trade blows until the conspirators lie defeated, their plans unmasked.

In the aftermath, Vikas and Anjali are finally reunited, their bond tested by fire but unbroken. Rizwan makes an unexpected return to their doorstep, leaving a question mark over what comes next but sealing the trio’s legacy as they step into an uncertain future together.