TIGER ZINDA HAI IS BASED ON THIS REAL LIFE INCIDENT!

The trailer of Salman Khan's much-awaited film Tiger Zinda Hai is finally out and as expected, has created a storm on social media. Much like its prequel Ek Tha Tiger, both Salman and Katrina play intelligence agents in Tiger Zinda Hai who fight against all odds to save 25 Indian nurses who are held hostage in Iraq.

Interestingly, the film is based on a real-life incident which happened in back 2013-2014. Several Indian nurses, mostly from the state of Kerala, took up an offer to work in Iraq at a hospital in Tikrit. After they reached Tikrit in August 2013, they soon realised that they will have to live a life confined to the hospital building.

Talking to India Today, Nithyamol, one of the nurses recalled that they were never allowed to go out and their familiarity with the town was the skyline that they observed from the windows on the second floor where all the nurses stayed, six in each room. On June 12 2014, they heard rounds of gunfire and realised that Iraqi forces were indulging with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) militants. The militants finally made their way to the hospital building by June end-early July 2014. Around July 3, they asked the nurses to assemble outside the building, threatening them to blow up the structure. They were then moved to Mosul and kept at an undisclosed location. It was a hostage-like situation, however, the ISIS decided to free them every next day, handing them over at Erbil on Friday, July 4 2014.

Tiger Zinda Hai is a dramatic recreation of the same incident and is the sequel to Kabir's 2012 film Ek Tha Tiger, which was a big hit at the box office.

Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, the film also stars Angad Bedi and Paresh Rawal and is set for a worldwide release on 22 December under the banner of Yash Raj Films.