The ending of Khakee: The Bengal Chapter was all about IPS Arjun trying to find Ranjit and make him pay for killing his predecessor, IPS Saptarishi, and committing several other crimes. Ranjit used to work alongside Sagor for the dreaded gangster Bagha, who in turn was working for CM Shirshendu’s right-hand man, Barun. When Bagha insulted Ranjit and Sagor for trying to rise up the ranks of the world of crime by killing Saptarishi, the duo killed Bagha and became Barun’s most trusted aides. After that, when Barun began favoring Sagor over Ranjit and supported his political ambitions and sidelined his sidekick, Ranjit retaliated by not only sexually assaulting a close friend, Deepa, but also attempting to kill her and her father, Manik, in a bomb explosion. Sagor’s wife, Manjula, became collateral damage, causing Sagor to go on a bloody rampage. Hence, Ranjit killed Sagor, and he began making plans to finish off Barun too, before fleeing from the country. It was up to Arjun to stop Ranjit. Did he succeed, or did he fail? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Aratrika Is The Mole
In addition to Ranjit’s rise and fall as a budding gangster of Calcutta, Khakee: The Bengal Chapter, weirdly enough, hinged on the revelation that police officer Aratrika was the mole who was working for Barun. She was instrumental in the deaths of Saptarishi, journalist Koyel, Koyel’s father, and possibly countless other people. She was the reason why Barun, Bagha, and their associates were also 10 steps ahead of the police. And she was the one who ensured that Sagor’s confession tapes, which listed every crime that he had committed in Barun’s name, didn’t fall into the wrong hands. Yes, Ranjit killed Sagor not just to stop his revenge saga, but also to get those controversial tapes, deliver them to Barun, and find his way into his good books. However, Barun didn’t want to associate himself with Ranjit. So, he got Aratrika to go for the handoff and ordered her to kill Ranjit as soon as she had the tapes. She managed to get the tapes, but Ranjit fled the scene. The reason why she couldn’t directly deliver the tapes to Barun after that was because her colleague, Himel, was with her on that operation, and she needed to make it look like the tapes were taken from her by miscreants (who would deliver to Barun) without raising suspicions.
So, Barun orchestrated a traffic collision and got the tapes. That said, thanks to Arjun’s ex-girlfriend, who worked at BSNL, Arjun had alerted Himel about Aratrika’s duplicitous nature, and that allowed Himel to ambush Aratrika and get her to confess on record. At the end of Aratrika’s series of revelations, Arjun showed up to know firsthand why Aratrika joined hands with Barun. Aratrika said that a woman had died whilst in her jurisdiction due to custodial torture. She would’ve lost her job, but Barun swooped in and saved her by making the death of the woman look like a suicide. In return, Aratrika had to serve as Barun’s mole. Arjun couldn’t forgive Aratrika, and he ordered Himel to kill her to repair the people’s faith in this broken system. The message of this subplot was that, if you are a police officer, your job is to uphold the law, not dole out extrajudicial punishment. If you make one misstep and trust a politician for help, then be ready to lick their boots until you take your last breath. And if you are a bootlicker, then pray that the day never comes where an anti-establishment law enforcer catches you red-handed and puts you in your place before you are rescued by your “savior.”
Barun Pays For His Sins
Thanks to Kulfi and Chondon’s efforts, the two low-life criminals who had kidnapped Hajra’s grandson and set this whole story into motion, Ranjit learned about Barun’s everyday activities. He was hellbent on killing Barun for getting him to backstab Sagor (quite literally) and then taking away his only bargaining chip, i.e., Sagor’s tapes. But after doing all that, he intended to leave Calcutta, and he didn’t want to take anybody with him. Still, Kulfi kept pestering Ranjit to take him and Chondon under his wing and was insulted by Ranjit. While Kulfi digested Ranjit’s bitter words, Chondon felt that enough was enough. When he and Kulfi had kidnapped the kid, Ranjit had hung the two of them upside down from a goalpost and made a joke out of them. And he did that when he was at the height of his gangster activities. Things had changed a lot for Ranjit since then, but that didn’t stop him from disparaging Kulfi and Chondon. Hence, Chondon decided to inform Arjun about Ranjit’s assassination plans so that the police would have enough reason to nab him.
Arjun sent Himel to Prinsep Ghat, and he immediately spotted Ranjit going for Barun. However, he wasn’t quick enough to stop Ranjit from killing Barun and getting away. Well, maybe Himel was never supposed to stop anything, and Barun was destined to die at the hands of someone like Ranjit. Barun was like Ranjit when he himself was a young gangster. But as he rose through the ranks, he began seeing the likes of Bagha, Sagor, and Ranjit as mere pawns. He stopped valuing human life and manipulated everyone around him so he could stay at the top. And, in his arrogance, he forgot that, at the end of the day, he was also a human being and not some invincible god. I guess when Ranjit put a bullet in Barun’s leg, he was reminded of his mortality, and by the time he began reassessing his priorities, another one of Ranjit’s bullets entered his head. You’ll rarely see something like this happening in real life. Usually, people like Barun get away after committing countless crimes and destroying numerous lives. Since this is a fictional scenario, Barun got the end that he deserved.
Ranjit Is Dead
After burning through all his contacts, Ranjit showed up at Nibedita’s doorstep. Nibedita was the leader of the opposition, and she constantly critiqued CM Shirshendu and Barun for every single misstep. Ranjit capitalized on that sentiment and promised to share everything that was on Sagor’s tapes—because Ranjit was a first-hand witness to all the dirty secrets of top-ranking ministers that Sagor had put in those tapes—with Nibedita if she gave him safe passage. Nibedita always talked about toppling the NGS government, and Ranjit’s info would allow her to malign CM Shirshendu and everyone associated with his party, thereby creating a straight line to the CM’s throne for her during the upcoming elections. However, Nibedita had always walked on the path of righteousness, and she didn’t want to compromise on her ideals. Well, not immediately. 24 hours after her conversation with Ranjit, Nibedita caved in and agreed to take him to Dhaka, because she felt that becoming the CM and working towards the betterment of her state was more important than her morals and ethics.
When Arjun learned about Nibedita’s trip to Dhaka during election season, he knew something was wrong. So, he got Saumya to help him once again and track Nibedita’s calls. As soon as he learned that Nibedita was helping Ranjit to leave India for her own political ambitions and that Ranjit was at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Arjun rushed to nab him. Ranjit and Arjun got into a badly choreographed fight, which ended with Arjun riddling Ranjit’s body with bullets. In a very short span of time, Ranjit had gone from being a simple-minded crook who danced to Sagor’s tune to being a rapist, a cop-killer, and a murderer. It seemed like he regretted killing Manjula, but as soon as he got the opportunity to terminate a vengeful Sagor, he didn’t show any mercy. He didn’t sympathize with anyone. He had gone off the rails, and he was ready to do anything to stay afloat. To be honest, Arjun gave Ranjit a quick end. He deserved a prolonged punishment so that those who had been burnt by his actions would’ve gotten to see him come crashing back to Earth and pay for his reign of terror. Anyway, it’s good to see a fictional police officer killing a fictional criminal for his crimes in a fictional narrative while their real-life counterparts work hand-in-hand and ensure that justice doesn’t prevail.
Nibedita Is The Future Of West Bengal
In Khakee: The Bengal Chapter’s ending, Arjun met Nibedita. Earlier, he was angry with her because she had decided to help a criminal like Ranjit flee to Dhaka just so that she could become the first female CM of West Bengal. But since Ranjit died at the airport and Nibedita couldn’t benefit from the information that Ranjit would’ve given her if he had reached Dhaka, I guess the IPS didn’t have any reason to punish Nibedita. He knew that Nibedita was better than CM Shirshendu and all those guys who were looking to sit on the proverbial throne only to use Bengal’s resources to make loads of money. He had seen that Nibedita was willing to compromise with her ethics to make Bengal a better place, not solely to gain power. Hence, he recorded his findings about the connection between politicians in the ruling party and the gangsters of Calcutta, and he gave them to Nibedita so that she could use it to defeat the NGS and pave the way for a brighter future for the state.
The show came to a close on this optimistic note. We didn’t see whether Nibedita actually succeeded after using Arjun’s tapes. We don’t know if Nibedita even raised her voice against the NGS or joined hands with them. We also don’t know if Nibedita became more evil than the NGS after replacing them and began a period of tyranny that was worse than anything that Shirshendu, Barun, Bagha, Sagor, and Ranjit were responsible for. You can choose to believe that Nibedita won the elections and made West Bengal the best state in the country and be happy. Or you can look at the news, draw some parallels between real-life politicians and their fictional counterparts, and allow yourself to be consumed by the existential horror of the fact that the concept of a “lesser evil” is a trap. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the ending of Khakee: The Bengal Chapter. What are your opinions on the show, especially its ending? Let me know through the comments section below.
