In a recent conversation on Hindustan Times’ show Point Blank, Executive Editor Shishir Gupta sat down with Senior Anchor Aayesha Varma to unpack why a new terrorism thriller ‘Dhurandhar’ centred on 26/11 has struck such a powerful chord with Indian audiences – and how much of it is rooted in reality. What emerged was less a film review and more a hard‑hitting tour through four decades of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, India’s political responses, and the personalities now driving New Delhi’s national security doctrine.. HT decodes Dhurandhar movie success. Why this film has ‘clicked’. Gupta’s starting point is blunt: the film works because it mirrors the angst of a majority that has lived through repeated waves of terror. He describes the movie as a “cinematic interpretation” of real events over the past 25 years – facts woven with “a bit of fantasy” to create a gripping narrative – but insists the underlying incidents are real.. According to him, more than 2,000 to 3,000 innocent Indians have been killed in terror attacks in the hinterland alone in this period, with “thousands” more in Kashmir. The Hindu majority, he argues, has been “hit very hard by terrorism sponsored by Pakistan and its proxies within India,” and that lived experience is what makes audiences instinctively empathise with the director’s message. The film, in his telling, is not changing minds so much as giving cinematic expression to a sentiment already widely held.. From Afghanistan to Khalistan to Kashmir. To explain the film’s portrayal of Pakistan’s ISI, underworld and politicians as the main villains, Gupta goes back to 1979 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. At that point, he says, Pakistan – backed by the US and UK – “played a double card”: fronting the anti-Soviet jihad while simultaneously using the jihadi infrastructure to escalate terrorism against India.. He sketches a continuum:. First, Pakistan-backed Khalistan terrorism through the 1980s and early 1990s, funded by drug money and arms smuggling.. Then, from 1989 onwards, Kashmir-focused militancy, using local proxies while Islamabad described Kashmir as Pakistan’s “jugular vein” – a characterisation Gupta calls “totally incorrect.”. After 9/11, a shift to “homegrown” and Islamic terror networks like the Indian Mujahideen, again leveraging the underworld and building cells in Uttar Pradesh, Mumbai, Karnataka and Kerala.. He underlines Western complicity, arguing that the radicalisation pipeline – Wahhabi and Salafi ideology spread to fight the Soviets – was encouraged by major powers and then “couldn’t be controlled.”. 26/11: Intelligence, Failure and Politics. The film is centred on the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, and Varma presses Gupta on whether the state “failed the country” – an issue that has animated public debate since 2008. Gupta’s answer is unequivocal: there was intelligence, and it was specific.. He says US agencies tip