Raat Akeli Hai 2020

Five years after a brutal double murder, the story opens with a tense flash of a car pursued by a truck. The truck rammes the car, causing a rollover, and a lone killer steps out to annihilate the driver and the woman inside. He then disposes of the bodies at a factory, burning them with acid. In a shocking moment of negligence, the killer spills acid on one of his own hands as the scene ends. The early film atmosphere is clinical and grim, signaling a dark investigation to come.

Five years later, Inspector Jatil Yadav, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, attends the wedding of his colleague Narendra Singh Shreedhar Dubey. The social ritual is interrupted by Jatil’s mother, Ila Arun, a persistent matchmaker who is actively trying to secure a suitable bride for him. The scene quickly binds two threads: the personal strain of family expectations and the professional pull of a high-profile murder that has the local authorities whispering about cover-ups and silence within a powerful family.

The case lands on Raghuveer Singh, a wealthy aristocrat murdered on his wedding night by his own gun. His family’s reluctance to discuss the murder only deepens Jatil’s resolve. The investigation introduces Raghuveer’s sprawling clan: his daughter Karuna Singh Shweta Tripathi Sharma; his son Karan; a loyal housemaid Chunni; Raghuveer’s wife Pramila Singh Padmavati Rao; Pramila’s children Vikram Singh Nishant Dahiya and Vasudha; Karuna’s husband Ravi Sisodia Cricknowle; and Raghuveer’s new bride, Radha Radhika Apte. The family’s dynamic is tense and suspicious, with everyone containing ambiguous emotions and unspoken histories that hint at darker undercurrents within the house.

From his first questioning, Jatil learns Vikram was the first to discover the victim’s body. Vikram’s account places a late-night sequence: dropping off his fiancée at around 9:30, returning at 11:15, and then taking the women—Radha among them—to a temple at midnight. A conspicuous clue is a back staircase leading to a water tank, which suggests a possible route for illicit activity. As the interrogation deepens, Jatil begins to suspect Radha is being used as a scapegoat by Raghuveer’s relatives, who treat her as an outsider.

Radha’s story gradually emerges through fragments and old scars. Jatil recalls a moment from five years earlier when he saved Radha from attempting suicide by leaping from a train, a memory that colors his perception of her as emotionally vulnerable rather than a calculating participant in a conspiracy. The investigation uncovers additional threads: Raghuveer’s first wife died in a robbery years earlier; Raghuveer’s son Karan has a drug past; and an underlying murkiness threads through Raghuveer’s finances, relationships, and influence.

As the inquiry progresses, Jatil discovers provocative items hidden in Raghuveer’s private space—erotic magazines, photographs, and a plastic bead under the bed. A crucial turn arrives when phone records tie Vikram to a late-night call that coincides with Radha’s own phone activity; there are also indications that Radha’s past is more complicated than she admits. The search widens to the old maid’s connections and a seemingly peripheral gardener. The tension escalates when Chunni, Raghuveer’s maid, becomes a focal point: a confession about a lamp carried to Raghuveer’s room leads to new questions about who moved what and when.

Meanwhile, Jatil’s pursuit draws him into the mansion’s shadowy corners, tracing back the chain of influence to Munna Raja, a local MLA who has financial and political leverage over the family. The investigation also peels back the layered relationships among Karuna, her husband Ravi, and Raghuveer’s extended circle, revealing that Raghuveer’s world rested on manipulation, secrecy, and complicity. The forensic team provides a timeline: Raghuveer was killed with his own gun between 10 pm and 12 am, leaving blunt-force marks consistent with a close-quarters struggle.

Tensions reach a boiling point as Jatil closes in on Radha’s involvement, only to discover that a broader conspiracy is at play. A dramatic derailment occurs when the case moves toward a police station where Radha is being processed; a violent chase ensues with the butcher linked to Munna Raja’s network. The pursuit leads to a climactic train sequence, where Radha and Jatil narrowly escape as the killer’s men close in. They reach Raghuveer’s Gwalior farmhouse, where the plot begins to untangle in earnest.

Back in Kanpur, Narendra Singh undertakes his own line of inquiry into Chunni’s death. Forensics point to a suspect with a burnt hand and an unusual nail condition, suggesting a single assailant with a severe injury pattern. Narendra’s investigation intersects with Jatil’s, and the two men realize the killer has fluid motives tied to the family’s hidden history. The mounting evidence begins to reveal that Raghuveer’s first wife’s death, and the subsequent chain of events, were not accidents but parts of a calculated system designed to protect the family’s wealth and status.

As the layers peel away, the truth comes into sharper focus: the butcher, acting under Munna Raja’s directive, killed Raghuveer’s first wife and the driver, while a tacit network of insiders concealed the truth. Mrs. Raghuveer’s decision to return to Kanpur is manipulated as the family navigates fear of exposure and loss of inheritance. The examination of Raghuveer’s private life reveals a pattern of sexual abuse against Vasudha by Raghuveer himself, with Vasudha forced into silence and ostracized as the abuses came to light. Raghuveer’s predatory acts and the family’s complicity come together to illuminate the deeper rot at the heart of Raghuveer’s empire.

The turning point comes when Vasudha herself acts, a moment of recognition and desperation that culminates in her taking her uncle’s gun and shooting him in a fit of rage after she confronts him with the truth. Vasudha’s act of defiance forces the remaining family members to confront their own choices and the cost of their silence. In the aftermath, Vasudha confesses to Jatil and reveals the broader truth about the family’s machinations, including Pramila’s complicity and her eventual, tragic decision to end her life to avoid public shame.

In the denouement, Pramila’s machinations are laid bare: she had pressed Raghuveer to pursue wealth and property for Vikram, while attempting to shield herself from the consequences of the family’s actions. Vasudha’s testimony, coupled with evidence gathered by Jatil, exposes Munna Raja’s role in keeping the cover in place. With the truth out, Raghuveer’s family fractures under the weight of its secrets: Karuna’s disbelief, Karan’s silent complicity, and Vikram’s disillusionment with his mother’s relentless ambition.

Amid this, Jatil completes his work and returns to a quieter life with his mother, who remains eager to see him settled. The culmination arrives when he spots Radha on a train and gently suggests a life together; she smiles shyly, accepting the possibility of a shared future. The film closes on a note of uneasy justice and fragile hope: a detective’s persistence has unraveled a tangled lineage of violence and deception, and two people—Jatil and Radha—step toward a cautious, tentative happiness in a world where truth has finally found a way to break through the shadows.