Latest news with #TheHunt:TheRajivGandhiAssassination
Time of India
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Between Truth and Drama: When filmmakers tread the line while telling real stories
In a cinematic landscape increasingly drawn to true events, the question of how much creative liberty is too much is one that filmmakers often grapple with. From retelling political assassinations and hijackings to exploring biopics, storytelling rooted in real-life events must strike a careful balance between staying authentic and keeping the audience engaged. The director's dilemma: Sensitivity over sensationalism Filmmaker Nagesh Kukunoor , who has never hesitated from experimenting with his work, recently dipped his toes in the genre of true crime drama. With his latest release - 'The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination ' he has presented a seven-episode long investigative drama based on the murder of an ex-Prime Minister. Highlighting how he managed to strike a balance between creative liberty and authenticity of the story, Nagesh Kukunoor, in an exclusive conversation with us, shared, "A lot of the people of my generation remember it (the assassination) very clearly. So, you want to handle it with the utmost sensitivity and not sensationalize things. " "For me, what is exciting about the project is it never taps into any of the political connections. What it deals with is a pure police procedural, a crime thriller, if you will. And that's what got me excited about the project in the first place. And it's a book, 90 Days, literally, once we chose to adapt it, it plays out like a thriller. And even though people are familiar with it, I guarantee that when you actually see the jaw's going to be on the floor at several points, saying, Oh my God, did that really happen?" The art of dramatization: Writing what wasn't said Shedding light on how drama brings the real on reel, the director added, "Now where we have to take creative liberty is, let's say, I'm giving a random example. Let's say a couple of people met, a decision was taken, and then an event happened. This is what would have been reported by the journalists during that period. Now, if we choose to dramatize that, I'm going to have to write a scene. I'm going to have the characters say certain things. And then I'm going to have it actually play out." "Now, I wasn't there, so how would I know exactly what words were said, right? But in writing the dialogues, and I had two co-writers with me, we made sure that we handled it with as much sensitivity as possible to make sure that we were true to the characters of the people we were portraying. So I would like to think that we did a solid job. We didn't point fingers. We just let the events play out as they did. We handled both sides with equal sensitivity. " The Hunt - The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case Trailer: Amit Sial, Sahil Vaid, Bagavathi Perumal, Danish Iqbal and Girish Sharma Starrer The Hunt - The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case Official Trailer Another noted film personality who weighed in on the subject is Anupam Kher . He has been a part of several movies that are based on real events. We got in touch with him when his 'IB71'was about to hit the big screens. Inspired by true events, 'IB 71' is an espionage thriller set against the backdrop of the Indo-Pak war of 1971. It follows the story of an Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer, who uncovers a sinister plot by Pakistan and China to launch a joint attack on India within ten days. Speaking on the delicate tightrope between truth and cinematic storytelling, Anupam Kher, in context to 'IB71' specifically mentioned, "As far as the incident is concerned, there is not much cinematic liberty taken. But of course, because jab incident hua tha toh background score nahi chalta hai. Yeh film mein background score hai. And thodi-thodi cinematic liberty is taken with any, even when you make biopics. You do make it because it's an experience you want to give to the audience. It's a ten-day film that has to come in about two hours of cinema. But the feel of the film, the incidents of the film, what actually happened, how we sort of conned ISI, and how our agents went there, stayed in a hotel, etc. That is absolutely true." Anupam Kher Interview: IB71, His EXPERIENCE Of 1971 WAR, Vidyut Jammwal & More The grey zone: where liberty becomes a risk There is a limit, however, to how filmmakers can stretch the truth. In legal biopics or political thrillers, dramatization can lead to controversy, defamation cases, or political backlash. Even well-researched films. That's where filmmaker Nagesh's earlier quote becomes relevant - "We handled both sides with equal sensitivity." Audience decoding fact from fiction With the rise of true-crime documentaries and biographical cinema, audiences now bear a responsibility too. The line between truth and creative liberty often blurs unless viewers make the effort to research what was real and what was invented for screen impact.
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First Post
04-07-2025
- Politics
- First Post
Who was ‘one-eyed' Sivarasan, the mastermind of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination plan?
A new series called 'The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination' relives the 90-day manhunt for Sivarasan, the LTTE operative who masterminded the deadly killing of Rajiv Gandhi. But who was he, and how did he hatch the plan to kill the former PM? read more Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi greeted as he arrives to make an address during an election campaign moments before he was killed by a suicide bomber in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. File image/AFP On May 21, 1991, a bespectacled girl in an orange and green churidar bent down respectfully to touch Rajiv Gandhi's feet after he addressed an election rally in Sriperumbudur in India's Tamil Nadu. It was then that she set off a concealed explosive device that was strapped to her body. What followed was chaos and death; Gandhi, then aged 46, was killed along with 18 others, including the girl — later identified as Dhanu. This moment remains a black day in the history of Independent India. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD It also set off a massive nationwide investigation for the conspirators — which has now been converted into a seven-episode serial on SonyLiv, titled The Hunt – The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case, directed by Nagesh Kukunoor. The gripping show, ( read our review) gives us a ringside view of the CBI investigation and a closer look at those involved in the assassination, including the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam operatives led by Sivarasan. But who exactly was Sivarasan? How did he plan the death of Rajiv Gandhi? And what happened to him after it? We have the answers. Meet one-eyed Sivarasan The man believed to have devised the Rajiv Gandhi assassination plan was Chandrasekharampillai Packiachandran, also known as Sivarasan. Born in 1858, in Udupiddy, a town about 32 km from Sri Lanka's Jaffna City, he had a normal childhood. Sivarasan's father inculcated in him strong nationalist feelings at a young age. When his father died in late 1977, Sivarasan, being the eldest child, had to bear the family burden and drop out of school and begin supporting the family — he had three brothers and two sisters. It was around this time, that Sivarasan began showing signs of disenchantment with the Sri Lankan government. In fact, during this period, he was arrested on multiple occasions for displaying strong pro-Tamil Eelam views. Around 1983, he joined the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (Telo), a militant group. But in the subsequent years, he joined the LTTE. During his time in the LTTE, he was injured in a clash with the Sri Lankan armed forces near the Jaffna Fort and he lost his left eye. Soon after, his fellow LTTE colleagues started calling him 'Ottaraikkannan' or 'one-eyed person'. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Following the release of the 1961 Marlon Brando Hollywood film, Sivarasan became known as 'one-eyed Jack'. Sivarasan was specifically selected and assigned the task of killing Rajiv Gandhi by LTTE's Prabhakaran. File image/X Planning the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi As years rolled by, Sivarasan was promoted as captain in the LTTE and entrusted with specific assignments to be undertaken clandestinely in India. In 1990, he was tasked with the assassination of Kanthasamy Padmanabha alias Naabhaa aka Ranjan, who was the Secretary–General of the pro-India Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front. The success of this mission led LTTE chief Prabhakaran to assign him with his next target — Rajiv Gandhi. Unlike the Padmanabha assassination where firearms and grenades were used, another new method was to be used to kill Rajiv Gandhi. The entire responsibility of the mission was handed over to Sivarasan and he hatched the plan which saw him recruiting several other LTTE operatives such as Murugan, Ravichandran, Santhan and even Nalini. On the day of the assassination, Sivarasan, dressed as a journalist, reached the location of Rajiv Gandhi's rally and hid himself in the crowds. As Rajiv Gandhi walked to the crowds, it was Sivarasan who guided him towards Dhanu, who, in turn, garlanded Gandhi and then bent as if to touch his feet. She flicked a switch, resulting in half a kilo of plastic explosives in her suicide vest exploding, killing Rajiv Gandhi and others. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Sonia Gandhi, daughter Priyanka, and son Rahul turn to chanting mourners during the funeral of Rajiv Gandhi at Shakti Sthal on the banks of the River Yamuna in New Delhi. File image/AFP The hunt for Sivarasan and his death In the ruckus caused following the explosion, Sivarasan and his other conspirators fled the scene. However, what they didn't realise was that another photographer present at the rally had inadvertently taken photos of them. This led to a manhunt for Sivarasan, which ended up in the Bangalore suburb of Konanakunte in the state of Karnataka. In his book Ninety Days: The True Story of the Hunt for Rajiv Gandhi's Assassins, journalist-author Anirudhya Mitra writes, 'When he [Sivarasan] found that the police had surrounded his hideout in Konanakunte, he didn't immediately die by suicide. He knew the agencies would like to catch him alive, and yet he waited thirty-six hours for them to finally break into his hideout. It's only then that he shot himself through his temple. He was cunning, ruthless, brutal and devoted to his Tamil cause.' And when the authorities finally broke into Sivarasan's hideout, they found six of his comrades dead inside. They had all bitten into the capsule of cyanide that they wore around their neck. What is most ironic is that Sivarasan died on August 20 — the same day that Rajiv Gandhi was born. Also, the Indian Express reports that the residence in Konanakunte where Sivarasan and the other LTTE members stayed was converted into a police station and later the landlord rented it out to a school. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With inputs from agencies
