Aditya Raj Kaul & Dhurandhar — How NDTV’s Defence Editor Researched the Ranveer Singh Blockbuster

When audiences watched Ranveer Singh slip into the criminal underworld of Karachi in Dhurandhar — one of the biggest Indian films of recent years — few realised that the authenticity of its spy-world detail owed something to a working journalist. Aditya Raj Kaul, the Senior Executive Editor for Geopolitics and National Security at NDTV, served as the film’s research consultant.

It is an unusual crossover: a frontline conflict reporter helping shape a Bollywood blockbuster. But look closer and it makes complete sense. Dhurandhar is built on real intelligence operations and real terror events — exactly the world Kaul has spent 15 years covering. Here is the full story of how a newsroom defence editor ended up behind one of Indian cinema’s biggest spy films.

Who Is Aditya Raj Kaul?

Aditya Raj Kaul is one of India’s most recognised conflict and national-security journalists. A Kashmiri Pandit whose family fled Srinagar during the 1990 exodus, he first gained fame at 17 leading the “Justice for Priyadarshini Mattoo” campaign, then built a 15-year career reporting from war zones, disaster sites, and global summits. He has covered the rise of ISIS from Iraq, the India-China standoff at the LAC in Ladakh, the abrogation of Article 370, and major terror attacks across South Asia.

Since August 2025, he has been the Senior Executive Editor for Geopolitics, National Security, and Strategic Affairs at NDTV 24×7. Crucially, he is not only a reporter but also a documentary-maker — and it was his documentary work, not his TV reporting, that opened the door to Dhurandhar.

What Is Dhurandhar?

Dhurandhar is a Hindi-language spy-action thriller directed by Aditya Dhar — the filmmaker behind Uri: The Surgical Strike — and produced by Jio Studios and B62 Studios. It stars Ranveer Singh as Hamza Ali Mazari, an undercover Indian intelligence operative who infiltrates the criminal syndicates and political power structures of Karachi to dismantle a terror network targeting India. The ensemble cast includes Sanjay Dutt, Akshaye Khanna, R. Madhavan, and Arjun Rampal.

What makes the film significant — and what makes a research consultant essential — is its grounding in reality. Dhurandhar is reportedly inspired by real-life incidents, geopolitical conflicts, and the covert operations of the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW). Its plot draws loosely on a string of real events: the 1999 IC-814 hijacking, the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Operation Lyari, and other episodes across South Asia. The film became a major box-office success, ranking among the highest-grossing Indian films, and a sequel, Dhurandhar: The Revenge, followed.

A film woven this tightly from real intelligence history cannot rely on imagination alone. It needs someone who understands how these operations actually work — and that is precisely the gap Aditya Raj Kaul filled.

How Aditya Raj Kaul Became the Film’s Research Consultant

Kaul’s path into Dhurandhar ran directly through his own journalism — specifically, a documentary he made about one of the very events the film draws upon.

He created a documentary titled “Hunting The Hijackers: The IC-814 Hot Pursuit Story,” centred on the 2022 assassination of Zahoor Mistry — one of the hijackers of Indian Airlines Flight 814, the aircraft hijacked in 1999 in one of India’s most infamous terror episodes. The IC-814 hijacking is among the real events that inform Dhurandhar‘s storyline, so Kaul’s deep, documented work on that exact subject made him uniquely qualified to advise the production.

That documentary is what brought him into the project, after which he officially came on board as research consultant. In other words, his involvement was not a celebrity cameo or a name lent for prestige — it was a direct extension of his actual reporting. He had already done the deep research on the real history; the film simply needed access to exactly that expertise.

This is the cleanest possible example of journalism feeding into cinema: a reporter investigates a real terror event, produces a documentary on it, and is then brought in to ensure a major feature film depicting that world gets the details right.

Why a National-Security Journalist Was the Right Choice

The decision to bring a working defence journalist onto a spy film reflects a wider, smart trend in Indian cinema: the pursuit of authenticity through genuine subject-matter expertise.

Spy and war films live or die on credibility. Audiences — especially Indian audiences increasingly familiar with real geopolitics — can sense when a film’s intelligence-world detail is hollow or invented. Directors aiming for realism increasingly seek out people who actually know the terrain: former officers, security analysts, and, in this case, a journalist who has spent his career embedded in exactly these stories. Aditya Dhar, whose Uri was itself praised for its grounded military detail, clearly values that authenticity.

Kaul brought several things to the table that few others could: firsthand knowledge of how cross-border terrorism and intelligence operations function, familiarity with the specific real events the film references, and the investigative rigour of someone who has reported on R&AW-adjacent subjects, Pakistan, and Afghanistan for over a decade. For a film about an Indian agent in Karachi, that combination is close to ideal.

It also speaks to Kaul’s own standing. Being approached for a flagship film is a marker of how authoritative his national-security expertise is regarded to be — his knowledge is valuable enough that a major production wanted it baked into their script and world-building.

3 Things Most People Get Wrong About This Connection

1. He was a research consultant, not a scriptwriter or director. Some social-media chatter blurs the lines, but Kaul’s role was specifically research consultancy — lending factual and contextual accuracy to a film grounded in real events. He did not write or direct Dhurandhar (that is Aditya Dhar’s work). Understanding the precise role matters: he was the expert ensuring the real-world scaffolding held up, not the storyteller.

2. The connection is rooted in real journalism, not celebrity. Kaul did not get the role because he is a famous TV face. He got it because he had literally made a documentary on the IC-814 hijacking — one of the events the film draws on. The crossover is a product of genuine subject expertise, which is exactly why it is interesting: it is journalism directly enabling cinema.

3. It reflects a real shift in how serious Indian films are made. The bigger story here is not just one journalist on one film. It is that high-stakes Indian geopolitical cinema increasingly relies on real experts to achieve authenticity — and that working journalists, with their deep, current knowledge of conflict and security, are becoming valuable collaborators for filmmakers chasing realism. Kaul’s Dhurandhar role is a notable example of that trend.

FAQ — Aditya Raj Kaul & Dhurandhar

What was Aditya Raj Kaul’s role in Dhurandhar?

Aditya Raj Kaul served as the research consultant for Dhurandhar, the Ranveer Singh spy thriller directed by Aditya Dhar. He brought his national-security expertise to ensure the film — which is based on real intelligence operations and events — was grounded in authentic detail. He is the Senior Executive Editor for Geopolitics and National Security at NDTV.

How did Aditya Raj Kaul get involved with Dhurandhar?

He became part of the project after making a documentary titled “Hunting The Hijackers: The IC-814 Hot Pursuit Story,” about the 2022 assassination of Zahoor Mistry, a hijacker of Indian Airlines Flight 814 (IC-814). Since the IC-814 hijacking is one of the real events Dhurandhar draws upon, his documented expertise on the subject led to his role as research consultant.

Is Dhurandhar based on a true story?

Dhurandhar is reportedly inspired by real-life incidents, geopolitical conflicts, and the covert operations of India’s Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW). Its plot draws loosely on events such as the 1999 IC-814 hijacking, the 2001 Parliament attack, the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, and Operation Lyari. It is a fictionalised thriller built on a foundation of real events rather than a literal retelling.

Who directed Dhurandhar and who stars in it?

Dhurandhar was directed by Aditya Dhar, known for Uri: The Surgical Strike, and produced by Jio Studios and B62 Studios. It stars Ranveer Singh as undercover agent Hamza Ali Mazari, alongside an ensemble including Sanjay Dutt, Akshaye Khanna, R. Madhavan, and Arjun Rampal. A sequel, Dhurandhar: The Revenge, followed.

Who is Aditya Raj Kaul?

Aditya Raj Kaul is an Indian conflict and national-security journalist, currently Senior Executive Editor for Geopolitics, National Security, and Strategic Affairs at NDTV 24×7. A Kashmiri Pandit who experienced the 1990 exodus, he has 15+ years of frontline reporting and is also a documentary-maker — which is how he came to consult on Dhurandhar.

The Aditya Raj Kaul–Dhurandhar connection is a small but telling story about how modern Indian cinema chases authenticity. A journalist spends years reporting on terrorism and intelligence, makes a documentary on a real hijacking, and is then brought in to make sure a blockbuster spy film gets that world right. The expertise that fills NDTV’s defence desk turned out to be exactly what a Ranveer Singh thriller needed.

It is a reminder that deep, real-world knowledge travels further than the field it was built in. For Kaul, Dhurandhar is a notable line on an already-distinguished résumé — and for the film, his involvement is part of why its world feels real. Journalism and cinema rarely overlap this cleanly, which is precisely what makes this collaboration worth knowing about.

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