Biopics usually arrive with a halo. Ujjwal Nikam wanted his without one. The public prosecutor who led the case against Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving gunman of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, has revealed what he told the makers of Prahaar – The Ujjwal Nikam Story before cameras rolled: keep every name real, and glorify nobody.
The upcoming Rajkummar Rao film recreates one of Indian law’s most closely watched trials, so Nikam’s conditions read as a promise of restraint rather than a publicity line.
Two conditions before the cameras rolled
“My first condition was that there should be no glorification of any character, including myself,” Nikam told India Today. The second was factual: everyone from the legal proceeding had to appear under their real name. The makers then obtained no-objection certificates from the people involved, including trial court judge Madan Laxmandas Tahaliyani.
Tahaliyani’s presence is not incidental. He delivered the judgment on May 6, 2010, sentencing Kasab to death. A production that secures written consent from real participants, rather than hiding behind composite characters, gives the audience a firmer reason to trust the courtroom scenes.
How Rajkummar became Nikam
Rajkummar Rao plays the prosecutor, and the real Nikam says the likeness went beyond the look. Nikam praised the actor’s dedication, saying the usually soft-spoken Rao delivered his courtroom submissions with the same forceful josh, and that fellow lawyers later asked whether the two had been travelling together.
The preparation took an unusual route: the two never met before filming because the lawyer was busy with his own work. Instead, Rao studied videos of Nikam’s courtroom arguments and built the delivery from that footage.
The film at a glance
- Director: Avinash Arun
- Producer: Dinesh Vijan, Maddock Films
- Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Wamiqa Gabbi, Jaideep Ahlawat, Sikandar Kher, Ashish Vidyarthi
- Release: October 16, 2026, in theatres
The record, not the shine
For Hindi cinema fans, Prahaar arrives with a different kind of anticipation. The film is a biographical courtroom drama, but its centre is not a fictional hero; it is a working prosecutor who refused the usual glossy treatment. Nikam’s stance, no glorification and no fictional names, should keep the drama closer to the record than the genre often allows.
Rao’s slate makes the date worth marking too. He was last seen in the Netflix film Toaster with Sanya Malhotra, and after Prahaar he has Raftaar as well as Dada: The Sourav Ganguly Story, the cricketer’s biopic, and the third Stree film in the pipeline. But first comes October 16, when the 26/11 courtroom gets its on-screen reckoning. For once, the real people involved have already signed off on how they are shown.
Source: Hindustan Times