Trailer
Plot summary
During the period after the Kargil War, Heena Rehman, a Bangladeshi woman believed to work for the ISI, is killed at a party at the home of defense minister Brigadier Mirza. Krishna Mehra, an operative at the Research and Analysis Wing, is devastated, because Heena was her lover and was in fact working for the agency. Her chief Jeev tells her that a mole inside the agency is selling India's defense secrets and that the leak led to Heena's death, and he gives her the hunt for the mole. KM and Jeev obtain permission to put a colleague's house under electronic surveillance.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Khufiya (2023)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Vishal Bhardwaj bought the rights to Amar Bhushan's espionage novel Escape to Nowhere in 2016 and wrote the screenplay with Irrfan Khan in mind. After Khan's death in 2020 and other male actors rejecting the script, Bhardwaj rewrote it with a female protagonist and Tabu accepted the role.
- The story closely resembles the real R&AW spy Rabinder Singh, who moved to New Jersey in the early 2010s and died in a road accident after spending all his money and having no job.
- Wamiqa Gabbi was cast as the young mother because of her repeated working relationship with Vishal Bhardwaj, who said nobody wanted the part and he needed someone who would trust him blindly.
- Amar Bhushan's novel had no third act, so Vishal Bhardwaj wrote one that begins exactly where the book ends.
