Mission Kashmir

Mission Kashmir is a 2000 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film directed and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The film stars Sanjay Dutt, Hrithik Roshan, Jackie Shroff, Preity Zinta, and Sonali Kulkarni. It deals with terrorism and the tragedy of children suffering from war.

Mission Kashmir follows a young boy Altaaf Khan, who gets adopted by a police chief as his police team accidentally kills Altaaf's entire family. After finding out, he seeks revenge and becomes a terrorist. Rated R in the United States due to violence, the film was screened at the Stockholm International Film Festival and released theatrically in India and worldwide on 27 October 2000 during the Diwali festival.

The film clashed with Aditya Chopra's musical romance Mohabbatein which starred Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai in lead roles. Nevertheless, it was a critical and commercial success with global revenues of inr 433000000, emerging as the 3rd highest-grossing Hindi film of 2000. It won the Filmfare Award for Best Action and had similarities with Roshan's another 2000 film Fiza, in which he also played a terrorist.

Plot
Inayat Khan is the Senior Superintendent of Police of Srinagar, Kashmir. His young son Irfaan dies from an accident following doctors' refusal to treat him due to the fatwa instigated by wanted terrorist Malik Ul Khan, forbidding doctors to treat policemen and their families. Inayat swears revenge. His team kills Malik and his men, but a bystander couple dies in the crossfire, leaving their son Altaaf as the sole survivor. Inayat's wife Neelima convinces him to adopt the traumatized boy but he fears Altaaf might seek vengeance if he learns the truth. This fear indeed comes true. After an unsuccessful attempt on Inayat's life, the boy runs away and is found and brought up by a terrorist group led by Hilal Kohistani, who brainwashes him to become a terrorist.

Ten years later, Hilal is assigned "Mission Kashmir," a plan that involves killing the Indian Prime Minister. He encourages Altaaf to target Inayat, now an Inspector General, for his family's death. Altaaf visits his childhood friend and television personality Sufiya Parvez and, though he falls in love with her, uses her to try and blow up the TV tower of Srinagar, according to the plan. He makes another unsuccessful attempt on Inayat's life, which results in him becoming a wanted criminal.

Sufiya learns of his true occupation and breaks off their relationship. Altaaf makes another attempt on Inayat by planting a bomb in his briefcase. Neelima falls victim to it by accident, to the devastation of Inayat and Altaaf. Inayat learns that the true 'Mission Kashmir' is to launch missiles on local places of Hindu and Muslim worship to escalate Hindu-Muslim conflict, thereby dividing Kashmir and turning it into a war zone. The assassination of the Prime Minister was a decoy. Hilal kept the true plot a secret from Altaaf for he fears that Altaaf would not support it and tells his men to kill him if he doesn't consent.

Inayat and his men capture Hilal. Inayat offers a deal: allowing Hilal to continue with Mission Kashmir in exchange for killing Altaaf to avenge Neelima's death. As they reach the hideouts, Altaaf beats up a weary Inayat, who reveals to him the true goal of Mission Kashmir. Hilal orders him to shoot Inayat, who is willing to accept his fate after expressing his love for Altaaf.

Altaaf struggles but remembers Neelima and decides to put his revenge aside to aid Inayat. He kills Hilal and redeems himself by destroying the missile launchers and killing the terrorists, thus saving the shrines. When he gets shot, Inayat rescues him.

The plans of Mission Kashmir are revealed to the public by the media, and Kashmiri police find and shoot the terrorist sponsor. Altaaf wakes up from a pleasant dream and reconciles with Sufiya and Inayat, accepting the latter as his father again after years.

Cast

 * Sanjay Dutt as IG Inayat Khan
 * Hrithik Roshan as Altaaf Khan
 * Preity Zinta as Sufiya Parvez
 * Sonali Kulkarni as Neelima Khan
 * Jackie Shroff as Hilal Kohistani
 * Puru Raaj Kumar as Malikul Khan
 * Abhay Chopra as Avinash Mattoo
 * Vineet Sharma as Gurdeep Singh
 * Rajendra Gupta as Chief Secretary
 * Ashok Banthia as Sharafat
 * Mohsin Memon as Young Altaaf
 * Heenaa Biswas as Young Sufia
 * Yogin Soni as Irfaan Khan
 * Rohit Dua as Guru
 * Suchita Trivedi as Dr. Akhtar's wife
 * Ram Awana as Zuber
 * Papa Pencho as Himself
 * Manoj Mishra as Koisha

Production
Due to the tight security in Kashmir, in late 1999, when the lead actor Hrithik Roshan arrived on location to start shooting Mission Kashmir, his debut film Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai (2000) had not yet released, so no one recognized his face. Arriving for the first day of the shoot in Srinagar dressed as a Kashmiri militant, which he portrays in the film, the security guards on location thought Hrithik really was Kashmiri – because of his fair skin and light coloring, and refused to allow him on set. Shortly thereafter, on 14 January 2000, Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai turned him a superstar overnight, and his face was instantly recognized everywhere.

Critical reception
Saisuresh Sivaswamy from Rediff wrote, "This is a story from the director's heart, not his head, and the sincerity comes across in frame after frame." Giving the film 4 out of 5 stars, N. K. Deoshi of apunkachoice.com wrote, "Beneath all the drama that goes on in the movie there lurks the aspiration to get across to people the message of what actually people of Kashmir are going through." Savitha Padmanabhan of The Hindu stated, "Mission Kashmir might have its faults but it is definitely a cut above the rest of the commercial Hindi films that have been made on terrorism." She also praised the cast's performances and the film's production value. Film journal Screen praised the performances, but further wrote, "Chopra makes a sincere effort in his latest film Mission Kashmir to bring to the fore, the turmoil in the valley. But one feels disappointed, all the same, that there is very little of Kashmiriyat in the story, which is more of a personal conflict between the victim of a police shoot-out and a police officer." Suman Tarafdar of Filmfare panned the film for its lack of "serious look at the issue". Vinayak Chakravorty of Hindustan Times, however, rated the film 3.5 stars, calling it "a good show" and praising Dutt's performance as "perfect". Jitendra Kothari of India Today praised the film as "a gripping film on a trenchantly topical issue, avoiding apportioning blame by intermingling strains of loss and guilt."

Music
The soundtrack of the film contains seven songs. The music is conducted by the trio Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy, performing separately. Ehsaan Noorani composed three songs, while Shankar Mahadevan and Loy Mendonsa composed two songs each.

According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 1.5million units sold, the film's soundtrack album was the year's third highest-selling. The song "Bumbro" was recreated as "Bumbro" for the film Notebook (2019).