The film is set against the backdrop of the 1971 Indo-Pak war, specifically focusing on the events leading up to the liberation of Bangladesh (then East Pakistan). The central plot revolves around the mysterious sinking of the PNS Ghazi, a Pakistani submarine.
The narrative posits a "what-if" scenario regarding the deployment of the Ghazi. The story suggests that Pakistan sent the submarine to the Bay of Bengal with the mission to target and destroy the INS Vikrant, the Indian Navy's sole aircraft carrier. By destroying the Vikrant, Pakistan aimed to blockade the Indian Navy and sever support for the Mukti Bahini (Bangladeshi freedom fighters).
To counter this invisible threat, the Indian Navy dispatches the S21, a submarine commanded by the rebellious and aggressive Captain Ranvijay Singh (Kay Kay Menon). He is accompanied by the upright and by-the-book Lieutenant Commander Arjun Varma (Rana Daggubati) and the experienced sailor officer Devaraj (Atul Kulkarni).
Background
What happened
Perpetrators and motives
Tactics and weapons
Security response
Impact and consequences
Assessing claims and narratives
Lessons and implications
Sources and verification
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Searching for "the ghazi attack -2017-" often leads to discussions about its VFX. The film was made on a modest budget of approximately ₹30 crore (approx. $4.5 million). Director Sankalp Reddy, a former software engineer, obsessed over details. He consulted naval officers from the Eastern Naval Command in Visakhapatnam to ensure that every warning light and every pipe leak was authentic.
The film’s central mechanic is "silent running." In submarine warfare, noise equals death. The Ghazi Attack -2017- visualizes this perfectly. When the crew stops speaking, holds their breath, and switches off non-essential machinery, the audience holds their breath too. The climax, where the S-21 releases a high-pressure air bubble to fool the Ghazi’s sonar, is a masterclass in practical effects and editing.
The film is inspired by true events, though it takes creative liberties. Historically, the PNS Ghazi was a Tench-class submarine leased from the United States. It was the only long-range submarine Pakistan possessed at the time, making it a formidable threat.
On the night of December 3–4, 1971, the Ghazi sank near Visakhapatnam harbor. The cause of the sinking remains a subject of debate. While the Indian Navy credits the sinking to the depth charges dropped by the destroyer INS Rajput, the Pakistani Navy maintains that the sinking was caused by an internal explosion or accidental mine detonation.
The movie adopts the narrative that the S21 (a fictionalized representation of Indian submarines involved) engaged and destroyed the Ghazi, offering a cinematic resolution to a historical mystery. The film is set against the backdrop of
In the annals of naval warfare, few threats are as insidious as the silent, deep-diving hunter—the submarine. On a humid night in February 2017, the Indian Ocean’s eastern waters, off the Visakhapatnam coast, became the stage for an encounter that would rekindle the ghosts of 1971. The name Ghazi—meaning “holy warrior” in Arabic—had haunted Indian naval intelligence for decades. It was the same name carried by the infamous PNS Ghazi, a Tench-class submarine from the US Navy (ex-USS Diablo) that met its watery grave off Visakhapatnam in 1971, allegedly sunk by an Indian depth charge or its own mines.
But in 2017, a new nightmare surfaced—literally and figuratively. Intelligence reports intercepted by the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the Indian Navy’s Directorate of Naval Intelligence hinted at a clandestine operation code-named “Project Sindhughosh Reborn.” Pakistan’s naval command, determined to avenge the 1971 humiliation, had secretly retrofitted an aging Agosta-90B submarine, the PNS Ghazi-II, with stealth technologies, air-independent propulsion (AIP), and a nuclear-capable cruise missile tube.
The target: India’s Eastern Naval Command harbor at Visakhapatnam, home to the INS Arihant—India’s first indigenous nuclear ballistic missile submarine. A successful strike would decimate India’s nuclear triad and trigger an uncontrollable escalation.
To understand the film, one must understand the rumor that sparked it. According to Pakistani and international naval historians, the PNS Ghazi (formerly the USS Diablo) was a Tench-class submarine on a secret mission during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Declassified accounts suggest that Ghazi’s objective was to hunt down and destroy the INS Vikrant, India’s lone aircraft carrier, to establish naval supremacy in the Bay of Bengal.
However, on the night of December 3–4, 1971, the Ghazi sank off the coast of Visakhapatnam. The official Pakistani narrative claimed the submarine struck a mine. The Indian narrative, which forms the backbone of The Ghazi Attack -2017-, posits a different theory: the destroyer INS Rajput (with help from a naval intelligence officer, Lieutenant Inder Singh) dropped depth charges that forced the Ghazi to implode or suffer an internal explosion.
The Ghazi Attack -2017- takes creative liberty with this theory. It invents a fictional Indian submarine, the S-21, and a crew of brave officers (played by Rana Daggubati, Taapsee Pannu, and Atul Kulkarni) who are stranded at the bottom of the ocean, leaking oxygen, while the Ghazi hunts them. What happened
Released in February 2017, The Ghazi Attack stands as a significant milestone in Indian cinema. Directed by debutant Sankalp Reddy, the film is touted as India’s first underwater war movie. It distinguishes itself from typical Bollywood war dramas by trading large-scale infantry battles and romantic subplots for a taut, claustrophobic submarine thriller.