Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas

Storyline

In October 2009, in the small town of Robertsganj, Uttar Pradesh, the disappearance of a young woman named Poonam Mishra kicks off a grim investigation. Her family reports her missing—and notes that alongside her disappearance, jewellery and bridal wear have vanished. The local police lean toward the conclusion that Poonam eloped, treating it as a routine case, while a local politician tries to spin it into a communal “love jihad” narrative. Enter Inspector Vishwas Bhagwat, newly transferred, who resolves to find the girl within fifteen days for her distraught father. He is haunted by his past—his own sister was once a victim of a similar case of disappearance. Bhagwat begins digging: he orders call-records analysis, disclosures of phone numbers, and uncovers that Poonam’s most-called number belongs to a labourer’s phone primarily used by a woman named Kaushalya, who in turn has been missing for months. The investigation reveals multiple missing women with overlapping threads of phone-contacts, unclaimed bodies, and jewellery. Simultaneously there is a parallel storyline of a young man called Sameer (in reality named Rajkumar Siritiya) and a woman called Meera: they meet, plan to elope, and when Meera disappears the two stories start to converge. Bhagwat’s suspicion turns toward a sex-trafficking or serial‐crime racket. A photographer, Kavita Shastri, is found linked to the missing-women phone networks and connected to Rajkumar. During interrogations, Rajkumar remains calm, manipulative, and defiant even as his two wives are brought in for questioning and jewellery from missing women is recovered at one of their homes. Bhagwat and his team realize that Rajkumar is not just a kidnapper but potentially a murderer of young women. He taunts the investigation, claims he will represent himself in court, and reveals disturbing details about lower-caste girls, poisoned “contraceptive” pills (actually cyanide), and women who vanished without trace. In the culminating courtroom sequences, Bhagwat fights not only the criminal but also institutional inertia and a complacent justice system. A key witness, Meera, who survived by a quirk of fortune (she licked the pill but survived and later built a new life), is hesitant to testify for fear of losing her husband, her daughter and social standing. Yet her decision to testify creates the moment where Rajkumar’s veneer cracks. The film ends with Bhagwat acknowledging that he could not keep all his promises (Poonam’s father is informed that Poonam was never found alive) and that evil often hides behind ordinary façades. The “rakshas” (demon) he hunts is neither monstrous in appearance nor physically larger than life—it is methodical, respectable, invisible.