She would have celebrated her 24th birthday on the 7th of September, 1986. Instead, her bullet-ridden body comes back to her devastated family, mother Rama( Azmi), father Harish(Tikku), her brothers, and the man who loves her( Ravjiani).
The film slides swiftly into its stride, taking us back and forth between the early morning of the 5th of September, with Neerja( Kapoor) getting ready for the flight, with her parents up and gently fussing around her, and a terrorist cell in Karachi, packing guns and grenades and gearing up for the hijacking of the Pan Am jet from Karachi airport.