That was on May 15, 1999, the Late Captain Saurabh Kalia was captured by Pakistani troops who had infiltrated the Indian side at the Line of Control (LOC). He was primary to a patrol gathering comprising five sepoys of the 4 Jet brigade that was assigned the profession of examination if the snow had retreated adequate at the Bajrang Post, situated at the over 13,000 ft high Kaksar Langpa area, in the rocky, treeless landscape of Ladakh mountains. “For the next 22 days, Captain Saurabh and his men were cruelly tortured by the Pakistani soldiers who burnt their bodies with cigarettes, pierced their ears, punctured their eyes, bankrupt most of their teeth and bones, chopped off the limbs and mutilated their private organs before finally shot them dead.

They were not given the basic civil rights prisoner of battle deserves according to the Geneva gathering. It’s been close to two decades since this incident happened but the guilty are yet to be punished. I want to tell the story of their bravery and sacrifice through my film,” says a Telugu boy, Srikanth Velagaleti who is directing the Hindi film tentatively titled ‘Tagda Raho’.

Srikanth Velagaleti has also written the story of the film himself. “The actions leading to Lt. Saurabh’s detain preceded the Kargil war. He was the first to notice the Pakistani attack, we all know about how the war played out and the magnitude of damage it caused; but how many of us know the proceedings that lead up to it? I will narrate the story from Lt. Saurabh’s point of view. He came from a brilliant family and was enthused to join the Indian Army,” says Srikanth who directed two films  Utt Patang and Telugu and Tamil remake of Marathi hit, Balak Palak before making the film ‘Tagda Raho’.

The Group Captain Mahesh Sharma (retd) is working as the creative consultant for the film which will also explore the relationship between Lt. Saurabh that has been shared with his family and his senior Captain Amit Bhardwaj, who was also murdered in a waylay before the Kargil while leading the look for Lt. Saurabh and the jawans. Srikanth says ‘Tagda Raho’ will be an ‘authentic war film’ with battle scenes devoid of inflated drama. “There’s going to be powerful drama and the focus will be more on interpersonal relations spaced out from war sequences,” he rounds off. As that the industry makers are busy with making the biopics of the successful people in other industries, here comes a real superhero biopic for the first time…