Plot

A retiring police officer reminisces about the most astounding day of his career. About a case that was never filed but continues to haunt him in his memories - the case of a man and a Wednesday.

A man calls up the Mumbai police, and tells them he has placed five different bombs in the city -- all set to go off in some time. He wants four terrorists in exchange. Does he get them? Who is behind it all? What's his motive? Is there more than meets the eye?—Saurabh Roy

Prakash rathode (commissioner of Mumbai police) receives a call of a man and he says that he has planted five bombs all over Mumbai and they will gonna detonate at 6:30pm to avoid this disaster he demands to release four terrorists which belongs to al-qaeda what's his motto?—Naved Dalkhania

On the verge of retiring as Commissioner of Police, Prakash Rathod, gets a telephone call from a male who informs him that he has placed several bombs all over Mumbai, and unless and until he arranges the release of four terrorists, with Al Qaeda and Lashkar links, namely Ibhrahim Khan, Ikhlaque Khan, Mohammad Zaheer, and Khursheed Lala. This male then warns Prakash that if his demands are not carried out, the bombs will explode, and one of them has been placed right opposite the Commissioner's Colaba office. It will be now up to Prakash and the state's Chief Minister to either adhere to this male's demands or face the death of tens of thousands innocent civilians.—rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)

Mumbai police commissioner Prakash Rathod (Anupam Kher) describes in a voice-over that he is going to retire the following day. He goes on to describe the most challenging case he faced in his career. It was a Wednesday. Arjun Khanna (Gaurav Kapoor) is an actor, who is meeting Prakash since he is getting extortion calls from across the border. His case is assigned to Jai Singh. Jai Singh says that these are prank calls and no real threat to Arjun or anyone else.

An unnamed man (Naseeruddin Shah) carries a travel bag, assumed to contain explosives, in the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station and proceeds to hide the bag in the restroom of a police station opposite the Mumbai Police headquarters (where he had gone on the pretext of filing a FIR that his wallet had been stolen. FIR was noted by Officer In-Charge (O.C) Baburao Patil (Virendra Saxena) at Colaba Police Station.. He gives his name as Rajesh Kumar Sharma and his address in the FIR). He then goes to the rooftop of a building under construction where he set up his base of operations, equipped with sim cards, mobile phones, and other gadgets. He calls Rathod and informs him that he has placed five bombs in locations throughout Mumbai and has programmed them to explode simultaneously within four hours unless the Commissioner gives in to his demands and releases four terrorists. Rathod alerts his team to trace the location of the caller. The caller tips off television news reporter Naina Roy (Deepal Shaw), telling her it is going to be "the most important day of her life". She works with cameraman Raj Sharma (Alok Narula).

Prakash calls the CM Sunil Nigvekar (Chetan Pandit) and asks him to negotiate with the caller, otherwise he demands unlimited powers to deal with the situation. CM grants him every authority to deal with the threat. The caller had revealed that he had placed a bomb in the Colaba police station, opposite the HQ. Prakash dispatches Jai to find the bomb, which he does. he reports that the bomb is made of RDX. Caller than calls Naina to head to the Colaba police station to cover the story. Jai and his team apprehend a middle man (Vicky Ahuja) who had delivered 6 kgs of RDX just a few days before. The police speculate that the caller might be the terrorist mastermind of Al-Qaeda or the ISI in India. Prakash summons Naina and orders her not to cover the story as he believes that the caller wants to show their panic and confusion on national TV. Through the middleman, Prakash's men apprehend the RDX supplier who gives a verbal description of the buyer. RDX was delivered to an under construction building in Malad. Prakash then decides to use Naina to share news on TV that is designed to misguide the caller and make him believe that his plan is working. Arif heads to the Malad building, but doesn't find anyone or anything there. It is clear that the caller did this on purpose.

Baburao Patil comes forward and tells Prakash that he had seen the caller when he came into file an FIR. Prakash orders a sketch to be made on Baburao's description.

The four terrorists demanded by the caller are rounded up by police officers Arif (Jimmy Sheirgill) and Jai (Aamir Bashir). Police depute a young hacker named Anuj (Apurva Mehrotra) to track the location of the caller. The caller asks the two police officers to leave the four militants near a bench on a Juhu Aviation Base runway, but Arif leaves only three behind (Ikhlaque Ahmed (Rohitash Gaud) (Al-Qaeda and the right hand man of Ibrahim Khan. Former ISI agent. Involved in all terrorist acts in India in the last 3 yrs), Khurshid Lala (Mukesh S Bhatt) (arms pimp. supplied arms for 1996 and 2003 blasts), Mohd. Zaheer (Vije Bhatia) (Lashkar's # 2 man in India. Former ISI and Al-Qaeda. He is a software engineer who designs anti-India propaganda websites)) and takes one of them, Ibrahim Khan (Kali Prasad Mukherjee) (Head of Al-Qaeda in India, heads 45 madrasas), captive as he suspects that the caller would not reveal the locations of the bombs even after the militants are released.

A phone placed under the bench rings and an explosion occurs, killing the three terrorists. The anonymous caller reveals he does not belong to any terrorist organization, and his plan was not to free the terrorists but to kill them. The caller, being just a "stupid common man wanting to clean his house", sought to avenge the terrorist attacks they had helped carry out in major cities in India, specifically the 2006 Mumbai train bombings. His final demand is that the officers kill Ibrahim themselves or he will set off all five bombs in Mumbai. Rathod indirectly orders Arif and Jai to kill Ibrahim and make it look like it was done in self-defense.

After the death of Ibrahim is confirmed on the news, the caller calls Rathod for a final time to reveal that he has not planted any other bombs in the city. Rathod declares he already knew there were no more bombs hence his decision to kill the last terrorist was not taken in fear but in confidence. Rathod reaches the caller's location (as the hacker did his job and found out the callers location) just as the caller is leaving, having destroyed all his equipment. The two meet briefly when Rathod, identifying the caller on the basis of a face sketch, offers the man a ride home.

In a voiceover, Rathod says the man told him his real name, but he does not wish to reveal it since doing so would give away the man's religion. Rathod admits that he knew the caller was disturbed because of the incompetence of the governing authorities, but he never imagined a common man would go to such lengths to achieve this end. He also notes that the facts of this incident cannot be found in any written record but only in the memories of those who actually witnessed it, and further acknowledges that although the incident has ambiguous moral significance, he personally feels that whatever happened, happened for the best.