Operation Safed Sagar: Baldy used Ajay Ahuja's money to buy his coffin, Oni Sen reveals deleted scene

When Operation Safed Sagar premiered on Netflix India, it told the story of the 1999 Kargil War from beyond the battlefield. The series also followed the families who were left behind and showed how the war continued to affect their lives. But director Oni Sen and Amrita Bagchi , who played Alka Ahuja, revealed that several of the most emotional scenes they shot did not make it to the final cut.

In the series, Golden Arrows Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja (played by Siddharth ) was captured, tortured and killed by the Pakistani army. When his body returned to India, it came in a coffin that was shorter than his height. But there was another heartbreaking part of Alka's story that the series did not fully show. Alka never saw Ajay's face after his death. She only saw the coffin, leaving her without the chance to see her husband one last time and get that final sense of closure.

In an interview with Indian Express, Amrita said, "She didn't see the body. She just saw the coffin. So, in her head, she's not allowed that physical closure to happen. That's why she says, 'I feel he'll walk in any time'. We didn't receive his body in a good condition. The coffin was smaller than his height. It was very inhuman. She chose to not see that. Whether at that time, it was her intentional choice or she was suggested not to, I don't know. I didn't have the heart to ask.”

One of the most heartbreaking deleted scenes revolved around the same coffin. Before leaving for Srinagar, Ajay forgot to withdraw some money from the bank and asked Alka to send it through a colleague. When the envelope, along with a letter from Alka, reached him, he was already preparing to leave for his mission. He simply tucked it into his overalls before taking off.

The envelope later came back with Ajay's coffin. Baldy (Mihir Ahuja) and Goofy (Arnav Bhasin) then went to arrange a new coffin for him. The team had also filmed a simple but powerful scene of a coffin maker making several coffins at once, quietly showing the scale of the loss during the war. The moment became even more painful when Baldy realised he did not have enough money to buy the coffin. The only money he had was the envelope that belonged to Ajay Ahuja.

"We'd actually shot this beautiful scene when this coffin maker is making hundreds of coffins because the army had lost so many of its men. These were the subtle ways we were trying to talk about the loss which we'd suffered at the moment. He has tears in his eyes. He takes out that money, which is Ahuja sir's money, to buy his coffin. Unfortunately, we couldn't put that into the show, but it's such a deep moment. It could've added another layer to it, but these are all real stories. They aren't fictitious," Oni revealed.

Beyond the battlefield, the series also explored the bond between three army wives, Alka, Kamalpreet Kaur (Dia Mirza), and Madhavi Reddy (Prajakta Koli). For Amrita, one particular scene about their friendship stayed with her. She recalled how emotional it was for everyone while they filmed it.

The report revealed that in the scene, Madhavi, who was pregnant, suddenly went into labour while their husbands were away fighting the war.