Noida: Most films on 26/11 return to the night itself — the gunfire, the siege and the three days of terror across Mumbai. Prahaar: The Untold Story of Ujjwal Nikam chooses a different entry point. The film moves into the courtroom, where the fight shifted from weapons to evidence, procedure and the burden of proving one of India’s most closely watched terrorism cases. The trailer gives the first detailed look at Rajkummar Rao as veteran special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, who led the prosecution against Ajmal Kasab, the only one of the ten attackers captured alive. The trailer was unveiled at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, one of the sites attacked on 26/11, in the presence of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Ujjwal Nikam, Rajkummar Rao and members of the film team.
What the Trailer Shows
Directed by Avinash Arun, Prahaar is positioned as a courtroom drama rather than a reconstruction of the attacks themselves. The trailer opens with Nikam questioning a young survivor about what she witnessed before moving into the legal proceedings that followed. From there, it focuses on the prosecution’s effort to establish Kasab’s guilt while navigating the constitutional requirement that even an accused in a terrorism case be given due process and legal representation. The trailer also foregrounds one of the most contentious episodes from the trial: Kasab’s claim that he was a juvenile. Rajkummar Rao’s Nikam is shown challenging that assertion in court, turning the question of Kasab’s age into one of the key legal battles in the trailer. The film also stars Wamiqa Gabbi, Jaideep Ahlawat, Sikandar Kher, Ashish Vidyarthi, Lalit Prabhakar and Ritvik Sahore. At the trailer launch, Rao said the responsibility of playing a real public figure was to make audiences see Nikam rather than the actor performing him — signalling that the film intends to build its drama around the prosecutor’s courtroom presence rather than create a purely fictional legal hero.
What the Trial Record Confirms
Ajmal Kasab was the only one of the ten attackers captured alive during the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. He was tried before a special court, with Ujjwal Nikam serving as the special public prosecutor. One of the real courtroom disputes involved Kasab’s age. During proceedings, Kasab claimed he was a juvenile at the time of the attacks. That claim mattered because juvenile status would have radically changed how the case was handled under Indian law. The court ordered medical and dental examinations and heard evidence relating to his age before rejecting the juvenile claim and proceeding with the trial against him as an adult. That episode forms an important part of the Prahaar trailer, with Rao’s Nikam confronting Kasab’s claim that he was 17.
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The Courtroom Battle After 26/11
Kasab was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to death. The conviction was subsequently upheld by the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court, and Kasab was executed in November 2012. The significance of Prahaar lies in shifting attention from the attack itself to what happened afterwards: the painstaking legal process through which the state had to establish guilt in court despite the overwhelming public anger surrounding the case. That also appears to be the film’s central dramatic question. How does a legal system prosecute a man accused of participating in an attack that traumatised an entire country while still following the procedures that system is supposed to defend?
Rajkummar Rao Steps Into Ujjwal Nikam’s Shoes
For Rao, the challenge is different from playing a fictional lawyer. Ujjwal Nikam is a recognisable public figure, and much of the Kasab trial remains part of recent public memory. That means the performance will inevitably be measured against the real prosecutor’s mannerisms, courtroom presence and public persona. The trailer leans heavily into that resemblance while positioning Nikam as the figure through whom audiences will revisit the legal aftermath of 26/11.
Prahaar: The Untold Story of Ujjwal Nikam is directed by Avinash Arun and produced by Dinesh Vijan under Maddock Films. It is scheduled to release in cinemas worldwide on October 16, 2026.
