Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders’ ending was about the revelation of the identity of the person who had committed the titular crime. Jatil was brought to the Bansal estate to look into the death of the family’s pet crows and the head of a pig that had been placed atop their newspaper, Prabhat Manthan, in their backyard. When the perpetrators of that crime turned out to be a couple of dudes who were paid to throw the pig head at the Bansals’ house, and they didn’t even have an idea who had sent them the money or the pig head, Jatil went to the estate to report this update to the family. That’s when he found out that Aarav had murdered Mahinder, Prashant, Madhav, Seema, and Vivek Bansal, and their security guard, Om Prakash, had been brutally slashed across the chest multiple times. During Aarav’s tussle with Om, the security guard pushed the alleged killer through the window, thereby preventing him from murdering Meera, Aastha, and Rihan. Initially, it seemed like an open-and-shut case about Aarav going overboard because of his drug abuse. Then it seemed like Guru Maa was the perpetrator because it was the pudding from her monastery that had been laced with clonazepam. In addition to that, Meera and Rajesh, the family members who had left the Bansals, were also seen as suspects. However, it was Jatil’s investigation into a company called Baxim Polymers that allowed him to discover the identity of the man behind the crime. Who was it, and what was their motive behind killing the Bansals? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Om killed the Bansals
It was explained in explicit detail by Om that he was the one who had killed the Bansals because the rubber production company, Baxim Polymers, that once belonged to Mahinder, probably in association with South Koreans, was the reason behind his daughter Rinki’s death. One of the gas outlets of Baxim Polymers was underneath a school in Ambedkar Nagar. During a Republic Day program at that school, Meera, Arjun (Meera’s son), Om, and Rinki, along with many others, were in attendance. Some kind of a gas leak happened, and several kids died, including Arjun and Rinki, which might be a reference to the 2020 LG Polymer incident in Visakhapatnam and all the hundreds of gas leak cases that take lives in India every month. Prior to his death, Arjun was taken to London so he got the best care in the world, while Om and the parents who lost their children were threatened by the Bansals’ PA, Sethi, that their houses would be demolished if they tried to talk about that incident. That prompted Om to go on a killing spree, that too on Rinki’s death anniversary, and he would have finished off everyone if Aarav hadn’t tried to stop him. Of course, the first question that must come to anybody’s mind is why was there a manhole connected to a rubber production company underneath a school? As per a local lawyer, Nisha, the school was constructed illegally. So, that must be it. But then wasn’t it the responsibility of Baxim to keep track of where their outlets were going? Yes, it was. However, you see, it’s easier to cover up a corruption case, especially if the victims of that crime are poor and helpless, than expecting accountability from the corrupt, who are usually rich and powerful. Moreover, it’s more important to protect the image of these rich and powerful perpetrators than to ensure that justice prevails. Sure, the Bansals had lost one of their own, but if they surrendered themselves to the authorities and got prosecuted for criminal negligence, it would have created a dent in their reputation and prevented them from expanding their business empire through even more corrupt means.
So, the Bansals chose to ignore Arjun’s demise and refused to empathize with Om’s loss and all those who had lost their children, because it’d help them in the long run. The flagbearers of capitalism have seen time and again that the lower classes never really voice their concerns. It’s not like they don’t want to rebel. It’s just that they are oppressed to such a dizzying degree that they can’t even dream of coming together to protest against something that’s objectively wrong. They barely earn enough to put together three meals a day, and if they don’t have physical strength, how will they muster the courage to spark a revolution? They are othered from “civilized society” in such a disgusting manner that they start thinking that maybe they should thank their fates that just some of them die on a regular basis instead of all at once. And those who keep the working class in such a sordid state know about all this, which imbues them with a sort of arrogance that they’re invincible. However, once in a blue moon, someone like Om rises up and shows the affluent that they are not gods, but humans who bleed and die, just like the people they oppress. Om did what he did knowing full well that it wouldn’t bring back his daughter. He didn’t expect to generate some anti-capitalist sentiment in the public or bring an end to capitalism in his country. He killed the Bansals because that was all he could do, and if he didn’t do that, he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself. Maybe if the municipality, the state government, the judges, and the police had done their jobs properly, instead of partaking in a massive cover-up, Om wouldn’t have taken such a drastic step. Will anyone ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again? Absolutely not, because as long as the rich are served, albeit with minor hiccups, and the poor are inconvenienced, it’s fine. Once that ratio gets flipped, then maybe society will be compelled to make some actual changes to the system.
The Guru Maa Cover-up
DGP Sameer, SP Chauhan, Guru Maa, and Rajesh had come to the conclusion that they’d pin the blame for the murders on Aarav and Umesh, the second security guard who was found sleeping on the day of the murder, and bring this investigation to a close, because it was hurting the reputation of the Bansal family, the police, and the spiritual leader. That plan went up in flames as soon as Om’s confession hit the internet, thanks to Jatil, Nandu (Jatil’s partner), and Dr. Panicker (the forensics expert). To repair the TRP of Newrise Media House, Rajesh was supposedly threatening to expose the fact that Meera was the owner of Baxim, because he knew that that kind of controversy would grab a lot of eyeballs. But during the closing moments of Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders, it was heavily insinuated by Meera that Mahinder had transferred ownership of Baxim to Guru Maa a long time ago. Which would mean that when the gas leak incident happened, it was Guru Maa’s name that was at stake. Heck, it seemed like Baxim’s South Korean connection was Guru Maa herself, because she had a monastery in South Korea too. Hence, the Bansals gave it their all to protect her by destroying every shred of evidence that linked her to Baxim, even if it meant that Arjun didn’t get justice. I have a feeling that Om knew about this, which was why he tried to implicate Guru Maa in the murders via the ominous death of the crows and by spiking the pudding that came from her monastery. He hoped that those clues would put Guru Maa behind bars; however, Jatil’s search for the truth exonerated her from the murder of the Bansals. Since Jatil had no way of knowing about Guru Maa’s association with Baxim, because the power of attorney documents were half burnt, she walked away scot-free despite being partially responsible for the deaths of Arjun, Rinki, and several other kids.
Why didn’t Om just go for Guru Maa like he went for the Bansals? Well, that’s because Guru Maa had more security than the Bansals, the people who were essentially paying for almost everything that Guru Maa had via the company called I&B, making her essentially untouchable. And that opens up a Pandora’s box of questions. For starters, why would a spiritual leader who could supposedly see the future and was in touch with the divine need mortal protectors? Why would Guru Maa need to be attached at the hip with a family like the Bansals? Why did she have to own unimaginable amounts of property, let alone a company that produced rubber and killed people with its toxic fumes? Well, like Aastha said, Guru Maa was a fraud. Like every other fraudulent individual in the world, she wanted money and power. She knew that spirituality in India sells like hot cakes, and that was a guarantee of power. However, power without money was pretty pointless. Swindling the poor wouldn’t yield long-term profits, especially in this economy. That said, preying on the insecurities, which stemmed from all the corrupt practices they had engaged in over almost five decades, of a family with a nearly bottomless source of money would be highly beneficial. So, to establish her own empire, Guru Maa sunk her fangs into the Bansals, and before the latter knew it, she had sucked out all their money and secured her future. Were the Bansals ignorant about that? No, not at all. They were well aware of the fact that their bank balance was beyond repair; it’s just that most of the family members cared about Guru Maa more than anything else in the world. So, even if any of the Bansals wanted to do right by the families of the kids that had been killed, they couldn’t, because protecting Guru Maa was their top priority. I mean, if Guru Maa was so pious and generous, shouldn’t she have atoned for her sins and given away all her wealth to Om and all those poor people? The fact that she didn’t do anything like that proved that she was a grifter of the highest order, and she prioritized self-preservation over assisting those who actually needed divine intervention. Guru Maa was a stand-in for all the self-proclaimed gurus in this country who are using their supposed connection to the spiritual realm to influence politicians and the rich to help them bypass all kinds of laws and regulations so that they can encroach upon protected land, destroy the environment, and indirectly kill people. And her subplot is a loud reminder that until and unless we resist capitalism being peddled in the name of spirituality, we’ll never attain true nirvana.
Meera’s Probable Hand in the Murders
Okay, so, something that kept bugging me after that final scene with Meera was the question: why did Om spare her? Rihan and Aastha making it out of the whole ordeal relatively unscathed was understandable because, firstly, they were kids, and secondly, by the time Om got to them, he had already been subdued by the unsung hero, Aarav. But Meera’s locked bedroom door prevented her from being killed by Om? Meera told Jatil that she had locked the door that night because she was changing. But she wasn’t. She was in the washroom washing her face. And I assume she changed her clothes every night. So, did she lock her door every night or just the door to the room, which I’m assuming is her walk-in closet or the washroom, where she actually changed her clothes? If not, why lock it specifically on the night of that gruesome murder? Then there was the case of the clonazepam-laced pudding. Sure, Om could score drugs, but getting clonazepam specifically followed by Meera not eating pudding on that night seemed too much of a coincidence. I mean, Meera not getting even a scratch on herself was so unbelievable that Jatil had to chalk it up to sheer luck. Here’s my tinfoil hat theory: Meera allowed Om to kill the Bansals. I’m pretty sure that Meera was miffed about the fact that Baxim Polymers, the brainchild of the Bansals, had killed her own child, Arjun. She or her ex-husband, Dr. Khanna, couldn’t do anything to hurt any of them without going to jail. Meera knew about the fact that Om, who was an employee of the Bansals, had been wronged. Hence, she got him to take revenge for everyone who had lost their children, including herself, on that fateful day.
I mean, a disgruntled employee going on a killing spree would fit the narrative that had been set by the rich, who want to make it seem like the poor act out because they are crazy, and not because they have been pushed to the brink through systemic oppression. Om accepted the task because revenge was all he could afford at that stage of his life. Since Meera provided him with that opportunity and maybe even gave him the clonazepam to spike the pudding, he actively spared her life, not the locked door. Another reason why Om let Meera live was because he knew that she had suffered enough. She had given away all her wealth in an attempt to atone for her ignorance about her family’s business, which cost Arjun his life. Killing Meera along with the other Bansals would have been, for the lack of a better word, excessive. Om did her one better, and took the fall for the crime even though Meera was an accomplice. In doing so, Om, Meera, and all the parents of Ambedkar Nagar were avenged. The only thing that causes this whole theory to kind of crumble is Meera’s undying fealty to Guru Maa. I mean, she was the one who was giving away the Bansals’ wealth, or at least her share, to Guru Maa. Why’d she do that if she knew that Guru Maa was the owner of Baxim Polymers? Well, Meera did tell Sethi that she had put a stop to the acquisitions that were being made through I&B, thereby stalling Guru Maa’s expansion for the time being, which might’ve been the reason why Guru Maa tried to whisk Meera away from the crime scene with such urgency. That’d mean she learned about Guru Maa’s hand in Arjun’s death very late in the game. Sure, Rajesh was apparently teaming up with Guru Maa for himself, but what support would he be able to provide to the spiritual “goddess” if Meera came up with credible proof of Guru Maa’s connection to Baxim? Even if Meera didn’t have anything that she could use to corner Guru Maa, the mere threat of exposing her involvement in those deaths could compel Guru Maa to bend to Meera’s will. Who knows? Maybe Meera could wield that power to get Guru Maa to use her influence on politicians or the judiciary to reduce Om’s sentence. With all that said, I am basing all of this on a very vague exchange between Meera and Sethi, and a brief shot of a concerned Guru Maa looking at Meera. I could be entirely wrong. So, take this section of the article with a grain of salt.
Jatil’s Realization That True Justice Doesn’t Exist
Like any good neo-noir, Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders’ ending had its protagonist, Jatil, getting only a moral victory, while losing his job for simply doing his job with utmost honesty. Om’s confession had undoubtedly ruined the reputation of the Bansals, but it had also destroyed whatever faith the people had in the police. Sameer had no way to prove that it was Jatil who had gotten that confession from Om, but since Om’s narrative matched with the one that Jatil was pushing before it was sidelined, Sameer knew that he was involved. Hence, he was suspended. That gave him the opportunity to focus on his cooking skills, cement his friendship with Dr. Panicker, and finally ask Radha to marry him. Regarding that last part, Jatil was unable to make a move because he felt that he was unworthy of Radha’s love and also due to the superstitious analysis, also known as “kundli,” commissioned by her mother, which showed that he and Radha were incompatible. During one of his altercations with Guru Maa, she had said that there was a dark presence hovering over his head. Jatil jokingly associated that dark presence with her mother and chucked the “kundli” of his love for Radha into the dustbin in order to show that he trusted his bond with his soulmate over everything else. That’s the literal analysis. Here’s the alternative one. When Guru Maa was talking about a dark presence, I think it was an inadvertent reference to Jatil’s job. Over the course of these two movies, as well as through Jatil’s brief conversations with Nandu about his past cases, it’s been proven that UP police is corrupt to its core, and as long as Jatil works for them, he won’t be able to deliver justice in its truest form. His path will be obstructed by his bosses or the boots that his bosses lick. Jatil has been suspended for now, but even if they revoke that suspension, I think he should quit the force and, I don’t know, become a private investigator. That won’t solve anything, because the issue is systemic in nature.
From top to bottom, if everyone is corrupt, there’s no space for honesty. And fighting such an immovable force is futile, especially because this circus has an endless supply of pliable “public” servants. You will get old and tired, but the system will always have someone to perpetuate the next wave of corrupt practices. At the cost of sounding repetitive, if people like Jatil stop being cogs in that wheel, it won’t miraculously cause the system to crumble. But at the very least, Jatil won’t have to follow protocol and be answerable to people who don’t care about what he has to say or what his findings are. He’ll only be answerable to those who hire him for the sake of justice and truth. Now, during a conversation scene with Radha, Jatil lamented about the point of searching for the truth in a world where everybody is either busy lying or just too busy to bother with what’s a fact and what’s not. Well, in my opinion, one shouldn’t search for the truth in order to “educate” anyone; one should search for the truth because that’s the right thing to do. It’s not his job to see what’ll happen to society once he has solved a case. He can’t sleep at night until he has ensured that the guilty party has been identified and the innocent have been exonerated. Therefore, he should keep doing that and leave the rest to the public. If they respect his work, they’ll emulate it. If they don’t, well, it’s their loss. Nowadays, the number of people who appreciate truth-seekers is less than those who don’t, and that can be demoralizing, especially because it empowers people like Sameer and Chauhan. But accepting that this will be our reality for the foreseeable future is like accepting defeat even before the war starts. Hence, if your life isn’t on the line, you should overlook the odds and continue the pursuit of justice. In Jatil’s case, it’s understandable if he retires after giving this crime-solving thing one more try, as a police officer or a private investigator, because in UP, he can actually lose his life and jeopardize the lives of Radha and his mother. And I don’t think it’s worth it to sacrifice yourself for a society that champions hollow gurus, crony capitalists, and corrupt police officers. Such a society should know what true anarchy looks like; then and only then will there be a demand for people like Jatil. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the movie. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
