How Ghazi Baba operation, shown in the film ‘Ground Zero', is detailed in IPS officer's biography

India Today

20-05-2025

Continuing with the Hindi film industry's trend of making movies on real-life incidents, the Farhan Akhtar- Ritesh Sidhwani-produced Ground Zero, directed by Tejas Deoskar, is the story of the operation to eliminate dreaded terrorist Rana Tahir Nadeem aka Ghazi Baba, the mastermind of the 2001 Parliament attack.Ghazi Baba was originally a resident of Pakistan's Bahawalpur, one of the places struck by the Indian military during Operation Sindoor.advertisementThe film, which released a few weeks ago, has Emraan Hashmi playing the main protagonist—Narendra Nath Dhar Dubey, the second-in-command of a Border Security Force (BSF) battalion posted in the Kashmir Valley.The film's release was preceded by the release last year of the autobiography of the late Vijay Raman, a highly decorated 1975 batch IPS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre. Raman was posted as BSF inspector general (IG) for Kashmir when the Ghazi Baba encounter took place in 2003. Raman's book Did I Really Do All This? covers his stints in the BSF, including Jammu and Kashmir.
In the book, Raman describes how he received inputs about Ghazi Baba's whereabouts though an old contact. It was during his posting in Delhi that he came to know about the militant's presence in Srinagar. By a twist of fate, the BSF IG in Srinagar took ill and Raman was assigned in his place.advertisementRaman got posted in Srinagar in mid-2003 and resumed contact with his informer. The chapter 'My Tryst With India's Osama' in his book describes in detail how Raman set up a team and did multiple recces to locate Ghazi Baba. On one such trip, Raman and other BSF personnel, armed but in civvies, had spotted Ghazi Baba in downtown Srinagar.Just when Raman was to exit his vehicle to apprehend Ghazi Baba, the informer held him back and asked the driver to get out of the area at the earliest. Later, he dropped a bombshell: Ghazi Baba wore an explosive belt and any attempt to arrest him could have been catastrophic as he would have blown himself up.On August 29, 2003, Raman received information from Narendra Dubey that he had inputs on Ghazi Baba. According to the book, Raman had not shared his pursuit of the militant with anyone until then. Ahead of a prime ministerial visit to Srinagar, the BSF had apprehended a man with grenades and weapons. He turned out to be Ghazi Baba's second-in-command.During his interrogation, it was learnt that a carpenter had created storage spaces in two houses in Srinagar and that weapons had been stored in one of them. A team led by Dubey went to the second house, only to find Ghazi Baba hiding in the storage space. He opened fire at the BSF personnel. Dubey was injured and evacuated from the building. Other injured BSF personnel were also shifted out, after which the building was blown up, killing Ghazi Baba.advertisementThe book mentions that Ghazi Baba was eventually positively identified by an India Today photographer. In the film, however, Ghazi Baba is shown to have been eliminated by Dubey. Raman mentions in his book that he had proposed the Ashoka Chakra (the highest peacetime gallantry award) for Dubey, but it did not materialise.The book contains vivid accounts of Raman's tenure in Kashmir, in the Special Protection Group (SPG) where he worked with four prime ministers, and also in Chambal, where he led the operation to eliminate Paan Singh Tomar, also the subject of the eponymous 2012 film starring the late Irrfan Khan.Subscribe to India Today MagazineMust Watch