General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Avrodh the Siege Within

Avrodh: The Siege Within (अवरोध) is an Indian Hindi-language war thriller streaming television series that dramatizes the 2016 Uri attack and the surgical strike carried out by the Indian Army ten days later. Directed by Raj Acharya and presented by Applause Entertainment, its first season premiered on SonyLIV on 31 July 2020¹. The series is adapted from the book India's Most Fearless by military journalists Shiv Aroor and Rahul Singh².

Key fact	Detail
Format	Hindi scripted web series, 2 seasons of 9 episodes each (18 total), average runtime about 37 minutes, streamed on SonyLIV from 2020 to 2022³
Season 1 subject	The 18 September 2016 Uri attack, in which four militants killed 19 soldiers at an army brigade headquarters, and the surgical strike launched 10 days later¹
Source material	Season 1 adapts the chapter "We Don't Really Know Fear" from India's Most Fearless by Shiv Aroor and Rahul Singh, with creative liberties²
Lead cast	Amit Sadh as Major Videep Singh, Neeraj Kabi as the National Security Advisor (Shailesh Malviya), Darshan Kumaar, Madhurima Tuli, Vikram Gokhale, and Anil George⁴
Season 2 subject	A fictionalized retelling of the chapter "Just tell me when to begin Sir" from India's Most Fearless 2, following a plot to destabilize India with counterfeit currency⁵
Reception	IMDb rating of 7.7/10 from about 4,800 votes; critical responses ranged from 2 stars (NDTV) to 3.5 out of 5 (The Times of India)⁶^•⁷

Spoilers

Premise and source material

Season 1 opens before the Uri attack and builds toward the retaliation. On 18 September 2016, four militants attacked the Indian Army brigade headquarters at Uri in Kashmir, killing 19 soldiers; ten days later, Indian Special Forces struck militant camps across the Line of Control (LoC)¹. The series traces the intelligence gathering, the closed-door meetings between the Prime Minister and other leaders, and the planning that led to the government's decision to retaliate with surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads⁸.

The adaptation draws on the chapter "We Don't Really Know Fear" from India's Most Fearless, a book of first-hand accounts of modern Indian military heroes by Shiv Aroor and Rahul Singh; the makers took creative liberties in expanding one chapter into a full season². Producer Samar Khan of Juggernaut Productions said the series was initially planned as ten episodes and was first titled "10 Days", covering the period from the Uri attack to the strike; the scripting process took eight to nine months⁹.

Season 2

A second season premiered in June 2022, again directed by Raj Acharya and written by Brijesh Jayrajan and Sudeep Nigam¹¹. It adapts the chapter "Just tell me when to begin Sir" from the follow-up book India's Most Fearless 2 and follows Pradeep Bhattacharya, an Additional Income Tax Officer who is also a Captain in the Indian Army, as he decodes an elaborate siege planned against the country⁵. The plot centers on an attempt to destabilize India's economy through a massive influx of counterfeit currency, and Abir Chatterjee leads the new cast¹¹. The two seasons share no storyline or characters and can be watched independently⁵.

Structure and characters

The nine-episode first season spends seven episodes on how the operation was built, showing the strike itself only in the final two episodes². Amit Sadh plays Major Videep Singh, a special task officer who, in the series' telling, has spent a decade of his 13 service years in Jammu and Kashmir and taken part in 20 successful anti-terror operations, making him the officer chosen to plan the strike and select his men². Darshan Kumaar plays Major Raunaq Gautam, and Pavail Gulati appears as Major Sood⁴^•¹⁰.

Political and antagonist threads. Neeraj Kabi plays the National Security Advisor, and Vikram Gokhale plays the Prime Minister modeled on Narendra Modi⁸. Anil George plays Abu Hafiz, a Jaish-e-Mohammed leader; through his sequences the show depicts how the outfit recruits young schoolboys in the name of religion⁸. Madhurima Tuli plays journalist Namrata Joshi, a role the Indian Express review called half-baked⁸.

Production and release

Applause Entertainment presented the series, with Samar Khan, Sameer Nair, Deepak Segal, and Aditya Pittie producing; cinematography was by Shanu Singh Rajput¹². Khan brought in Raj Acharya, director of the film Neerja, to direct, and Amit Sadh was the first choice for the lead⁹. Season 1 began streaming on SonyLIV on 31 July 2020, about a year and a half after the theatrical film Uri: The Surgical Strike (January 2019) covered the same event¹^•⁷. The series ran until 2022, ending after two seasons³.

Reception

Critical responses differed mainly on pacing and tone. The Indian Express called it an interesting retelling without jingoistic dialogues, praising Sadh and Kabi while noting that the action arrives only toward the end⁸. The Times of India gave the first season 3.5 out of 5, calling it a gripping watch¹³, and PeepingMoon also rated it 3.5, highlighting the more in-depth analysis of how the strike was carried out compared with the film¹⁰. NDTV gave 2 stars out of 5, finding the narrative dreary and mechanical⁷. On IMDb the series holds a 7.7/10 rating from about 4,800 users⁶.

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026