URI directer hails govt & agencies for making surgical strike a reality

Panaji: Aditya Dhar, director of blockbuster film 'Uri: the Surgical Strike', on Sunday said that it was impossible to negate the contribution of the government and its agencies towards launching the post Pathankot surgical strikes in 2016.

Addressing a press conference at ongoing International Film Festival of India (IFFI), he said he wanted to show how everyone got together, including government and all the departments and everything for the single cause. 

''They wanted to make it a point that we want to. We will not keep quiet this time. We want to give a reply to whatever has been happening to our soldiers. If some section of society feels it is propaganda I cannot do anything about it," Dhar said.

"I stuck to it because the whole point is, if I would not have said this story, somebody else would have definitely said it. It is impossible to negate the contribution of government. It is impossible to negate the contribution of ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation), DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) and all the technical teams which were involved in it, the same way as it was completely an army's point of view," the director, movie won three national awards, said.

Aditya said the surgical strike was one of the huge operations ever conducted in the country and the film was supposed to be a tribute to Indian Army personnel and their families. He said the film was supposd to be a short film but he was glad that it was received well.

''The kind of love and appreciation we received from across all the corner, the Army faternity, the defence faternity, everywhere it was incredible. Then we received national awards and everybody started recognsing us in terms of technical aspects of it. It was an incrdible team effort. We at the set were, on an average, about 25. It was a pleasant experience,'' Aditya, who has worked as lyricist, writer and assistant director in films like 'Kabul Express', 'Aakrosh' and 'Tezz', said.

On the very popular 'Hows the Josh?' dialogue, Aditya said, "It was part of the script but Vicky Kaushal was not very convinced with the line in the beginning. But I made him understand that this is how they motivate their soldiers in the army. But the moment he said it, he himself and everybody else around the set had goosebumps and so we decided to keep it in the film."

Responding to allegations on URI being a propaganda film, the director said he was trying to portray the reality by showing the events that happened after the Uri attack in chronological order. 

"While doing that it is impossible to negate the contribution of government and other technical teams involved. If a section of society feels that it is propaganda, I can't do anything about that, " he added.     He also spoke about his next venture 'Ashwatthama' which is a superhero film starring Vicky Kaushal, that will start shooting next year.(UNI)