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Ranveer Singh-starrer Dhurandhar is up for release in a few weeks and it has been rumoured that the film is based on the life of Major Mohit Sharma, who went undercover as Iftikhar Bhatt and infiltrated Hizbul Mujahideen in the early 2000s. In an earlier interview, Mohit’s brother Madhur Sharma spoke about his time as Iftikhar and recalled what he was told about the operation where Mohit shot two terrorists with their own weapons and was calmly drinking kahwa after shooting them dead.
In a chat with Lt Cdr Bijay Nair’s YouTube channel, Madhur shared that the incident happened in 2004 but they did not get to know about this until many years later. He also mentioned that the version that he was told must have been redacted, as there must be details about the operation that have been kept under wraps by the authorities. Madhur recalled that Mohit was living in Kashmir at the time and had developed a lot of relationships with the locals there and was quite well-connected. He shared that it was through one of these connections that he learnt about two people who were seemingly frequenting a house. Mohit got in touch with a local and made acquaintances with these two individuals, and asked them for a job.
“He stayed with them as a sidekick for two weeks. Cooking, cleaning, making tea, kahwa, and getting firewood, he used to do all of these things for them. He was basically helping them like a servant, but obviously, there was a plan to all this,” he said. Madhur said that Mohit was trying to find out about their plans and operations, and since he was new to them, they would not discuss their plans in front of Mohit, until Mohit charmed them as well.
“Ultimately, he developed a relationship with them that they started to trust him, that he is one of us,” he said and shared that Mohit had presented himself as someone whose family had faced injustices by the Indian government, so the terrorists trust him. “They felt that his family had suffered at the hands of the Indian government and they started to trust him,” he said. Madhur said that Mohit could not carry his own weapon, as they would have caught him immediately so while he was undercover, he did not have any weapons on him.
Madhur recapped the day when all the action took place and said that the two men were supposed to go out for an operation and Mohit insisted that they take him along. “He had made kahwa for them that morning. And he insisted that they take him along. They said that since he was quite new, they didn’t trust him enough. After listening to this, Mohit, as I am told, handed them one of their own AK-47 weapons and said that if you don’t trust me after two weeks, shoot me. He said I have given you all the plans of the army, and if you don’t trust me even now, then shoot and get it over with,” he recalled.
When Mohit said this, the terrorist gained some confidence in him. Madhur said that it was then that Mohit shot them both. “That’s when he picked up the pistol from the table and he made two shots, that’s what I have been told. He made two shots and point blank, killed both these guys and then he sat there and he finished the kahwa,” he said. After Mohit had his kahwa, he called his company and announced, “Boss aa jao, kaam ho gaya hai.”
Madhur said that one of the officers who was in the vicinity, and was instructed to rescue Mohit in case the plan faltered said that when they blasted the door and saw Mohit having kahwa, he laughed and said, “Tu pagal hai?” Madhur said that to him, all of this sounded “filmy” and he couldn’t believe it.
He shared that years after the incident, when he learnt about it, he asked Mohit the same question and “he was laughing like a kid. Like I was telling him a bedtime story. He was like, ‘It happens’. Now you can laugh about it, but that time we were scared.” Madhur said that when he heard the story, it sounded like a war film to him. “It felt like someone was telling me the story of a JP Dutta war film that he has handed an AK-47 and said, shoot me,” he recalled.
Mohit Sharma passed away in 2009. He was honoured with an Ashok Chakra in 2010.
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