Prahaar: The Untold Story of Ujjwal Nikam

Avinash Arun’s Prahaar, being marketed as “the untold story of Ujjwal Nikam”, might not be the most accurate description of the film. And that’s because it has little first-hand insight on the much-chronicled public prosecutor in the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts case. This is consistent with the Hindi film biopic, where the subject rarely has to work hard to become the protagonist. It’s something that is consistent here as well, where Rajkummar Rao (playing Nikam) gives a speech at a celebration, after the verdict of the 1993 bomb blasts case. “The foot soldiers faced the consequences, but the main conspirators are still free,” he says, “The job is not finished” and an inspirational score fills the background. I braced myself for yet another hagiography, where the subject is next to God. However, soon enough, Arun’s film zooms out from Nikam, introducing supporting characters, who, reluctantly, express the film’s larger ambitions.

The trial for Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist captured alive in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, has just begun when public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam (Rajkummar Rao) plays his first hand. He refers to the defense attorney, Abbas Kazmi (Sikandar Khen), as “terrorist lawyer”; when Kazmi objects, he says he meant “terrorist’s lawyer”. Later in the film, Kazmi brings this up with Nikam, tells him how it stings to be called that when you’re Muslim. Nikam says it wasn’t personal and that’s the last we see of Kazmi. Unwittingly or not, the lawyer’s strategy is echoed by the film. Nikam knows his wordplay will be censured but says it anyway, for the drama and the swarm of reporters. Prahaar, directed by Avinash Arun and written by Sumit Roy, is careful to explain that Kazmi is just doing his job, that he’s taking a huge risk as a Muslim lawyer accepting this case. But there in the trailer, attention-grabbing and meme-ready, is “terrorist lawyer”. It’s a little jab in the film, but it feels more significant out of context. For the many who’ll see the trailer but never get around to watching the film, it might be the one thing they remember about Prahaar.

There’s nothing better than a film that surprises you. I admit, I did preemptively box Prahaar: The Ujjwal Nikam Story as another propaganda piece– a subtler one if not of the blaring loud type. It wasn’t an unfounded opinion. If you read up about Ujjwal Nikam you will find an impressive CV. Before getting on the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks trial, the Maharashtra-based lawyer had already served as a special prosecutor on high-profile cases like that of the 1993 Bombay bombings and that of T-series head Gulshan Kumar’s murder. If you research a layer deep, you will find that the lawyer was a candidate for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from Mumbai North Central Lok Sabha constituency in the 2024 Maharashtra state assembly elections. A Caravan article details how the BJP played up Nikam’s image as the lawyer who delivered the death penalty to terrorist Ajmal Kasab and reduced the whole campaign to be either for or against terrorism. Nikam lost the election but was given a Rajya Sabha seat by the ruling party in 2025.

To begin with, the title of the film is slightly misleading — or, more specifically, the latter half of it. There is very little that is truly ‘untold’ here, apart from the personal life of the celebrated public prosecutor who fought several high-profile cases, none more consequential than the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks involving Ajmal Kasab. The details of the case are already in the public domain, but director Avinash Arun does a commendable job of dramatising them in Prahaar: The Untold Story of Ujjwal Nikam.

Truth is what we ostensibly fight for, yet it is often the first casualty of the very battles waged in its name. Nowhere is this paradox more acutely felt than in a courtroom, where the clamour for retribution must yield to the rigours of evidence and the dispassionate demands of the law. It is this uneasy intersection of public outrage, legal obligation and the pursuit of justice that lends Prahaar: The Untold Story of Ujjwal Nikam its most compelling premise. Unfortunately, a film that understands the moral stakes of its subject does not always possess the dramatic finesse to do it justice. Directed by Avinash Arun and produced by Dinesh Vijan under the Maddock Films banner, Prahaar traces the professional journey of public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam through some of India’s most consequential criminal proceedings. Revisiting the legal battles arising from the 1993 Bombay bombings and the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the film eventually settles on the trial of Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist captured during the 26/11 carnage. Rather than merely reconstruct the horrors of that night, it turns its gaze towards the protracted judicial proceedings that followed, examining what it means to uphold the rule of law when public sentiment clamours for swift and uncompromising vengeance.

As a courtroom drama centred on the Indian lawyer who secured the sentencing of the one surviving terrorist behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, Prahaar: The Untold Story of Ujjwal Nikam is a predictably effective movie. There’s no dearth of storytelling around this tragedy, so the familiarity — the cultural fatigue — is now used as a weapon. Much like its central character, Prahaar postures, pauses, poses, argues, emotionally manipulates, yells, and wins. Given the subject, it’s hard to get wrong. The background score milks every moment; Lalit Prabhakar plays Ajmal Kasab as a brown-faced monster slowly disintegrating into a man; the CST shooting is recalled and filmed through the eyes of a child; the trauma is amplified so that the fruits of justice taste sweeter. And of course, there’s the patriotic closing argument.