The story is set against the backdrop of a little-known saga in 1930s British colonial India's East Bengal (now Bangladesh) where a group of schoolboys and young women, led by a schoolteacher Masterda Surya Sen (Manoj Bajpayee), dared to take on the Empire. ''Chittagong'' is the story of a diffident 14-year-old boy, Jhunku (Delzad Hiwale). Swept up into this seemingly impossible mission, the reluctant teenager battles with self-doubts to achieve an improbable triumph.