Escape From Taliban - 2003

Story

Escape From Taliban is the true story of Sushmita Banerjee's horrific experience in Afghanistan and her daring escape from the Taliban in 1995.

The film portrays the life of a woman who triumphs against all odds for justice.

Escape from Taliban opens on a typical Bengali girl, Sushmita (Manisha Koirala) who forsakes her religion and her family for Janbaz Khan, the love of her life. He is a tall, dark, handsome and intelligent young man from Afghanistan.

She leaves her life-long companions in Kolkata to be with her loved one in the remote village of Sharan, near Ghazni.

To her horror she discovers on her arrival that her husband already has a wife. Soon she is subjected to the harsh inhumane Afghan lifestyle in her in-laws residence and learns a new meaning of womanhood, where woman are born for the pleasure of men and to bear their children. She is not supposed to have a mind nor an identity of her own.

Moreover, with the rise of fundamentalism, the Taliban make her life more horrendous. It is at this point that Sushmita's individuality comes to the fore.

She starts protesting at the treatment being meted out to her day after day, night after night. All this angers the Taliban so much that a death sentence is issued against her.

When this happens, her real fight begins. After three years of torture and two failed escape attempts, she makes her way out of the clutches of the Taliban to freedom on 7 August 1995. Ironically, it is the Afghani women who help her in her escape to freedom.