Shool 1999

The film opens with a late-night phone call to Bacchu ‘Bhaiyyaji’ Yadav, Sayaji Shinde — an influential MLA aligned with the ruling party in Bihar. His men track him to a prostitute’s dwelling, where he learns that his party has chosen another MLA for the ticket this time. He doesn’t waste a second and heads straight to the newly selected candidate’s home, pressing him to withdraw his nomination for a fat pay-off. When intimidation fails, his thugs—led by the notorious Violent Coolie Rajpal Yadav—stab the candidate under Yadav’s supervision.

Across Motihari, Inspector Samar Pratap Singh, Manoj Bajpayee is posted with his wife Manjari Singh, Raveena Tandon, and their daughter. At the railway station, a heated dispute with a coolie over a ₹30 fare escalates until a local hawaldaar tries to muscle in. Samar insists on fair payment, and the confrontation spills into the station area. A sub-inspector, Hussain Ganesh Yadav, steps in, but Samar refuses to back down. He soon learns that Motihari’s police operate under Yadav’s influence, collecting hafta to do his bidding, and that the law here scarcely serves the people.

The central conflict intensifies when the D.S.P. Shri Vallabh Vyas assigns Samar to quell a clash between rival gangs and to arrest the attackers who targeted Yadav’s men. Samar digs into the case, uncovering that Yadav’s own crew, including Lallan Singh Yashpal Sharma and others, are the true perpetrators. When the D.S.P. orders the released men back, Samar refuses, insisting the case is already on file. This becomes the first clear signal of Samar’s stubborn integrity, and it alarms those who profit from the system’s rot.

Yadav, irritated by Samar’s insistence on law over convenience, stages his own grand anniversary party to flout the rules. Samar arrives to enforce the lack of proper permissions for late-night loudspeakers; with no papers shown, he confiscates the music system and halts the spectacle. Yadav attempts a patronizing, almost benevolent lecture, while the inebriated D.S.P. tries to sweep the issue under the rug. Samar remains unmoved and demands written orders, a stance that triggers renewed pressure from above. The clash culminates in a public confrontation where the corrupt apparatus manipulates events to frame Samar for a physical assault on his superior. Tiwari, Vineet Kumar, tries to help, but the chain of power seems unbreakable, and Samar is suspended.

Yadav and his men decide to deliver a final blow, and in one cruel turn the gang’s indecency toward Samar’s daughter shatters his restraint. Samar’s temper erupts, and one attacker clubs him, yet the blow backfires when the henchman strikes Samar’s daughter, killing her. Laljee Yadav Nandu Madhav, badly beaten, goes to Yadav to report Samar’s assault, only to be killed by a shotgun blast from Yadav himself, who then manipulates the scene to have Samar arrested on the charge of the crime. Samar’s parents arrive, and his father pleads for his release, but Yadav uses the moment to secure it, while Samar publicly insults him in return.

Days pass, and Manjari, the wife who stood by him, sinks into despair. She attempts suicide with sleeping pills, and a panicked Tiwari informs Samar of her condition. The hospital scene offers a brief, uncertain solace as Manjari, before dying, urges Samar to avenge their daughter and their family’s suffering.

With his world shattered, Samar discards everything but his oath. He retrieves his service weapon, overpowers the warnings of Hussain, and sets out for Patna. He breaches the legislature’s security and seeks out Babu Bhaiyyaji in the well of the House. In a final act of defiance and heartbreak, he drags Yadav to the Speaker’s dais, makes an emotional appeal about leadership and the criminalization of politics, and then, in a vow to restore justice, shoots Yadav in the head and proclaims his patriotism, crying out twice the words that echo through the halls: > Jai Hind