General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Jehanabad - Of Love & War

Jehanabad - Of Love & War is a 2023 Indian Hindi-language crime drama web series created and written by Rajeev Barnwal, directed by Barnwal and Satyanshu Singh, and streamed on SonyLIV. Set in 2005 in the small town of Jehanabad, Bihar, it is inspired by India's biggest jailbreak and follows a love story between a college professor and his student that develops in parallel with a Naxalite plot to free their imprisoned commander.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Premiere	3 February 2023 on SonyLIV, one season of 10 episodes³
Setting	Jehanabad, Bihar, in 2005, around the time of the real Naxalite jailbreak¹
Historical basis	The 13 November 2005 attack in which hundreds of Communist Party of India (Maoist) members stormed the town and freed imprisoned comrades; about 372 prisoners escaped⁴^•²
Lead cast	Ritwik Bhowmik (Abhimanyu Singh), Harshita Gaur (Kasturi Mishra), Parambrata Chattopadhyay (Deepak Kumar), Rajat Kapoor (Shivanand Singh), Satyadeep Misra (SP Durgesh Pratap Singh)⁵
Creative team	Story, screenplay and dialogues by Rajeev Barnwal; co-directed with Satyanshu Singh; showrunner Sudhir Mishra; cinematography by Xoaher Musavvir; produced by Studio Next⁶
Episode length	Episodes run roughly 35 to 50 minutes each²
Audience rating	6.8/10 on IMDb from about 1.3K votes⁷

Spoilers

Premise

The series weaves three strands together. Naxalites plan what the show calls the country's biggest jailbreak to free Deepak Kumar, a seasoned Naxal commander held in the Jehanabad prison. In parallel, an innocent love grows between Abhimanyu Singh, an English literature professor, and his student Kasturi Mishra, whose father works at the prison. A third thread follows Shivanand Singh, an ex-MLA and upper-caste politician who courts Dalit votes ahead of an election, while caste sentiments in the town are on a boil.¹^•⁴^•⁸

The two overarching themes, love and revolution, run in contrast through most of the season before merging in the final episode, which is set on a wedding night when the whole town comes under siege as the Naxals move and the elections begin.⁸^•⁹

Cast and characters

Ritwik Bhowmik plays Abhimanyu Singh, a calm and sensible English literature professor; Harshita Gaur, known for playing Dimpy in Mirzapur, plays his student Kasturi Mishra. Parambrata Chattopadhyay plays the Naxal commander Deepak Kumar, and Rajat Kapoor plays the shrewd politician Shivanand Singh, a close friend of Kasturi's father Rajendra Mishra (Rajesh Jais), who runs the prison canteen. Satyadeep Misra plays Superintendent of Police Durgesh Pratap Singh, with Suneel Sinha as a Maoist conspirator and Sonal Jha as Kasturi's mother.²^•¹⁴^•⁵

Reviewers noted that the actors adapted convincingly to the Bihari dialect, giving the drama an authentic feel, and that Kapoor's character was given quirks such as recording big moments with a Polaroid photograph.²^•¹⁴

Historical basis

The show is loosely based on a real incident. On 13 November 2005, hundreds of Communist Party of India (Maoist) members marched into Jehanabad, battled security forces for hours, freed imprisoned comrades, and gunned down incarcerated members of the upper-caste Ranvir Sena militia; about 372 prisoners escaped from the jail.⁴^•² A parliamentary statement recorded that 222 escaped prisoners had returned and 20 Naxalites had been arrested in the aftermath.¹⁰ The series keeps the jailbreak's core plot close to the real events while adapting its own story around them.¹¹

Production

Writer and co-director Rajeev Barnwal conceived the idea while working on a non-fiction show for Sony in Chhattisgarh in 2005, when he learned of the jailbreak and also encountered a real love story that shaped the framing of the series.⁸^•¹² The script took about eight months to write and the shoot about 85 days, with filming across eight locations in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra.⁸

Barnwal said he deliberately avoided using Magahi, the language spoken in the Jehanabad region, because he wanted the SonyLIV show to reach a wider audience.¹³ The makers also stated that they tried to handle a serious subject with sensitivity, showing blood and gore only when integral to the storytelling.⁸

Reception

Critical response was mixed to positive. India Today gave the series 3 out of 5 stars, praising its authentic and honest portrayal of a love story brewing amidst rebellion while finding the ending disappointing, possibly left open for a sequel.¹⁵ The Times of India also rated it 3.0, calling it a slow-burn, 90s-style romance whose drama picks up pace by episode six and turns into a nail-biting thriller, though some subplots felt rushed.² Deccan Herald gave 2.5 out of 5, finding the narrative losing pace as it took on more characters, while crediting the production values and performances.¹⁶ Rediff.com called the show gripping and praised its authentic, low-key capture of the ethos and language of small-town Bihar, but also found the ending unconvincing.¹⁴ On IMDb the series holds a 6.8/10 rating from about 1.3K votes.⁷

A complaint about violent scenes in the show's promo reached the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council as Appeal No. BCCC/0052/2023, dated 14 February 2023; the appeal was disposed of.¹⁷

Music

The soundtrack includes the songs "O Piya", described as soul-soothing, "Kahin Kuch Toota Hoga", an emotional track, and "Laal Salaam", a catchy, uplifting number, along with two folk songs that keep the Bihari essence of the series.¹⁵ Composer Sujeet Shetty, who had worked with Rajeev Barnwal on the song "Love Ki Ghanti" for the film Besharam, composed for the series.¹⁸

Availability

The series streams on SonyLIV in India, and is also available on VI movies and tv or for free with ads on SonyLIV.¹⁹

References

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