New Delhi:
Rana Daggubatti is on his toes these days as he is gearing up for the first release of the year 'The Ghazi Attack', which is releasing on February 17.
The movie has been the talk of the town given that it revolves around 1971 Indo-Pak war and the mysterious sinking of Pakistan's submarine Ghazi.
'The Ghazi Attack' is an underwater tale of the courage and patriotism of the men aboard the Indian Submarine S-21 who destroyed the Pakistani submarine, PNS Ghazi, when it ventured into Indian waters to destroy the INS Vikrant.
A Sankalp Reddy directorial, the movie featured a stunning ensemble of cast, starring Rana, Taapsee Pannu, KK Menon and Om Puri in pivotal roles.
So as 'The Ghazi Attack' is all set to hit the theatres, we bring you the real-life incident that is the inspiration behind this much-touted movie:
1. Originally called as USS Diablo (SS-479), 'PNS Ghazi' was leased from the United States by the Pakistani Navy in 1963. The submarine was earlier serving the US Navy from 1945 to 1963.
2. PNS Ghazi had a major role in the Indo-Pakistani war theatre of 1965 and was also stalking INS Vikrant, then India's only aircraft carrier. However, it wasn't able to locate it during the entire war.
3. In 1971, PNS Ghazi was stationed at Karachi coast. However, when India transferred INS Vikrant to Visakhapatnam, Pakistan was forced to completely change their submarine operations as East Pakistan (today, Bangladesh) coast was in no position to defend itself against strong Indian Navy forces.
4. While the Pak government was pressurising the Pakistani Navy to deploy the ageing, often-malfunctioning Ghazi to defend East Pakistan, the naval force was hesitant to do so fearing that it would endanger their precious submarine.
5. However, the Pakistani Navy had no options to deploy PNS Ghazi when the war was inevitable. The submarine secretly sailed from the Arabian Sea to Bay of Bengal to locate INS Vikrant.
6. But the Indian army was well prepared in advance. First, they decided to send off Vikrant to a point that was far enough from the Eastern fleet for the Pakistani ships to effectively combat. Second, sufficient steps were taken to make Pakistani authorities falsely believe that Vikrant was headed to the Madras coast. The submarine INS Rajput was deployed by the Indian side to destroy Ghazi.
7. PNS Ghazi mysteriously sank on December 4, 1971. While India claims that INS Rajput had loose two depth charges off the Visakhapatnam coast on December 3, whose explosions in turn led to the sinking of PNS Ghazi, Pakistan refuted the Indian version of the incident.
8. On December 4, the Ghazi was no more, having sunk mysteriously with 92 men on board on the Visakhapatnam coast.
Well, the mystery surrounding the sinking of PNS Ghazi still continues and the Sankalp Reddy has made an attempt to concocted the war tale on the big screen.
