5 min readMumbaiAug 25, 2026 12:44 PM IST
Oni Sen’s period war drama Operation Safed Sagar on Netflix India has put in focus not only the Indian Air Force’s contribution in the 1999 Kargil War that took place between India and Pakistan, but also the interpersonal relationships between key members of the forces at this side of the Line of Control. These include Kargil war hero, Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja, and Birender Singh Dhanoa aka Tony, the Commanding Officer of the Golden Arrows.
That last scene between Alka and Tony never took place
Towards the end of Operation Safed Sagar, we see that Tony (Jimmy Shergill) doesn’t show up to bid goodbye to Ajay’s wife Alka Ahuja (Amrita Bagchi) as she’s leaving the base. When she asks, Tony’s wife Kamalpreet Kaur (Dia Mirza) tells her that he’s gone to Delhi for “paperwork”. But the actual reason could be that Tony is too embarrassed to face Alka, after she held him accountable for losing her husband Ajay (Siddharth) during the war.
They do finally meet at the petrol pump Alka is running, when Tony visits her. However, that scene, which is the last we see in the show, never actually happened in real life. Operation Safed Sagar co-creator Abhijeet Singh Parmar revealed in an interview with ET Now the creative liberty they took in order to give the series the emotional finish it deserved.
“The conversation between Tony sir and Alka ma’am did not happen in real life. But I spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to end a war story after the victory. I had spent the entire second half of the series building towards the war and the success of the operation. But I didn’t want the final emotion to be just the victory. I wanted to end with the two people who had been most deeply affected by the war, sitting together after everything was over,” argued Parmar.
Siddharth as Ajay Ahuja in Operation Safed Sagar.
But incorporating that scene in the show wasn’t easy as “most people in the crew felt it was extra and not needed”. However, even Shergill supported Parmar’s instinct to go ahead with that fairly crucial scene. “Jimmy sir also advocated that it make the final cut and I can’t thank him enough for getting it and standing by it. His performance in that scene cracks me up every time. For me, it is one of the most special moments in the show,” added Parmar.
The said scene involves Tony apologizing to Alka for not being able to protect Ajay. However, Alka consoles him and reassures him that she doesn’t hold him accountable anymore. She also asks Tony, who’s crying inconsolably, to forgive himself and not be too harsh to himself for what happened to his old friend.
Relationship between Ajay, Alka, and Tony
As depicted in Operation Safed Sagar, Ajay is an old friend of Tony, and a decorated air force pilot in his own right. That prompts Tony to bring Ajay to his air force base, so that the latter can train the young team of Golden Arrows, consisting of RS Dhaliwal (Abhay Verma), Bal Reddy aka Baldy (Mihir Ahuja), Jitendra Sangwan (Taaruk Raina), and Amit Gupta aka Goofy (Arnav Bhasin).
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In a scene between Ajay, Alka, Tony, and Kamalpreet, we see the bonding between the old friends, as Tony expresses his gratitude to Ajay for relocating to his base on his request. However, as the events unfold, Ajay’s return ends up in his fighter jet being gunned down by the Pakistani army and his parachute drifting into the Pakistan territory. He’s consequently captured, brutally tortured, and killed.
When Ajay’s body is returned to India, and he’s cremated with full military honours, a devastated Alka questions Tony why he couldn’t keep her husband and his old friend safe during the war. Even though Tony tried to fly across the LoC to bring Ajay back, he was cut short by Air Marshal Vinod Patney (Adil Hussain), since that risked him getting shot dead or captured by Pakistani army to be used as a prisoner of war for negotiations with the Indian government.
Also Read — ‘Written in my destiny to make patriotism cool’: Siddharth on Rang De Basanti, Safed Sagar
Operation Safed Safed Sagar, co-created by Parmar and Kushal Srivastav, is directed by Oni Sen. Backed by Matchbox Shots, the series also stars Prajkata Koli as Madhavi Reddy, Manu Rishi Chadha as former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, Vinay Pathak as then-Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and Aanjjan Srivastav as then-India Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, among others.
