Indian Army Major Ranvir Kaul (Amitabh Bachchan) and some 30 of his colleagues were captured in Pakistan and held under brutal conditions for 33 years. The jail is headed by Maj Qureshi (Piyush Mishra), who does not like the brutal torture of the prisoners. Kaul attempts another escape (he steals a lighter from his torturer and uses that to light his guard's face on fire, when he was being transported between prisons) but is caught, beaten, berated and thrown back in prison. Eijaz (Aditya Srivastava) is the ISI officer in charge of torturing them. During the fracas one of his men does flee and through a sympathetic friend, Jabbar (Akhilendra Mishra), sends a letter home. Kaul's wife (Tanuja) and son Gaurav (Akshaye Khanna) petition the Indian Army but the General, though sympathetic, has his hands tied. He raises the subject and Pakistan will deny it and immediately the men will be shot; he cannot authorize Army action absent hard evidence (not just a letter); there are no other options. Kaul's son, Gaurav, sets off to find his father. he is not sure if Ranvir is still alive, but his mother is resolute in her conviction. Other prisoners include Naru (Ashraful Haque), Anand (Rajendra Gupta), Nayyar (Kamlesh Sawant) & others. Gaurav smuggles himself into Pakistan (By getting captured as a Pakistani dead person and is thrown across the border by BSF in a body exchange) (Gaurav travels by train but is recognized by a policeman from the India matchbox he carries. Gaurav manages to kill the policeman and continue ahead) and meets Jabbar and discovers (he captures an interrogates a guard from the first jail) that his father has been transferred to a different prison camp (Since the original prison was being inspected by the Human right commission), Saran Jail under the cunning and sadistic Sohail (Kay Kay Menon). Sohail hangs one prisoner who had tried to escape during the transfer process, on the day of their arrival at his jail. Radhika (Amrita Rao) is Jabbar's daughter and falls in love with Gaurav. Kaul meets another set of captured Indian POWs (Capt. Ajit Verma (Nishikant Dixit)) at this new prison. Kaul attempts another escape. One man sacrifices himself on the electric fence (Actually Ranvir had got the short stick, but his junior sacrificed himself to save Ranvir) as others go through. Sohail bemusedly sighs as the others, once past the fence, are blown up by the landmines (10 soldiers die in the attempt). Kaul and the remaining prisoners are again beaten and kicked back into their barracks. One of the prisoners, Khan (Sanjay Dutt), manages to evade the landmines (by jumping over the dead bodies) and escapes. Gaurav meets him accidentally, while Khan was being pursued by trained dogs and Pakistani military police and brings him to safety. Gaurav attacks a military courier and, using his uniforms, infiltrates a Pakistan Army office block. Gaurav is caught by Eijaz, but Khan had followed Gaurav and saves his life. He steals a set of plans which reveal a water main under the prison. His father and the men can dig their way to this main and crawl out. With great reluctance Khan gets arrested again and tells Gaurav that the escape will happen in 10 days. Sohail correctly guesses that Khan is back for a reason. Khan discloses to Kaul that his son is here; this news, and the water main, is a great inspiration for the men. The men quietly begin digging a tunnel to the water main. They discover the body of an Indian Army Captain Jatin (Raj Zutshi) in the debris under the prison, but this Jatin is among them! Khan and Kaul realize that he is in fact a Pakistani spy. Gaurav and Khan had planned the escape for the night of the tenth and Jatin, the spy, had dutifully reported this back to Sohail. Kaul and Khan decide that the escape will happen on the ninth. Jatin is not told of this, but the men manage to send a coded message to Gaurav. The following day Khan notices the number 9 scrawled on an army supply truck entering the prison: it is Gaurav's reply. He will await the men near the water main outlet on the ninth. On the night of the escape the men overpower the guards (Ranvir stays out of the barracks as the men sneak in a dummy to maintain the head count. Then the major attacks the guards at night to steal the keys and rescues the men from their cabin) and kill Jatin. They enter the water main and begin digging away the last few meters of remaining debris. The knocking in the pipes travels up to Sohail's kitchen sink; Sohail quickly discovers the escape and hotly pursues the men down the pipe. Gaurav digs from the other side and, just in the nick of time, the debris is cleared, and father and son are reunited. The men make it through. One of them (Jatta (Raghuvir Yadav)) sacrifices himself on a land mine inside the water main which caves in and blocks Sohail. Rajan (Arif Zakaria) also stays back at the camp to fire at the Pakistani and prevent them from pursuing his comrades. Gaurav leads his father and the men to a railway line, but the train is delayed till morning. The men split up to avoid detection and arrange to meet at dawn near a border point village. They arrive at the border point, but Sohail and his men are in close pursuit. There is a firefight. Khan puts up a brave fight but is shot down. Ranvir Kaul and Gaurav and the handful of remaining prisoners finally get across the border in a Pakistan army truck. Sohail is right behind them, but his jeep is disarmed and he is surrounded by Kaul and the prisoners. Kaul points to the border line behind them; they are now on Indian soil. Kaul, now an Indian Army soldier, attacks and kills Sohail in hand-to-hand combat, and throws his body across the border. The film ends as Ranvir Kaul and his men are reinstated in the Indian Army and salute the Indian tricolor.
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