| Director | Aditya Suhas Jambhale |
|---|
In Baramulla, Jammu and Kashmir, a young boy, Shoaib, mysteriously disappears during a magician's performance. The newly transferred DSP from Reasi, Ridwaan Sayyed, is put in charge of the investigation. He arrives with his wife, Gulnaar, and their children, Ayaan and Noorie, and the family moves into an old villa cared for by a mute attendant, Iqbal.
A year earlier in Reasi, Noorie and some of her schoolmates were taken hostage by terrorists at her school. During the rescue, Ridwaan accidentally shot one of Noorie's classmates while firing at a terrorist, leaving her deeply traumatised and estranged from him.
As Ridwaan investigates Shoaib's disappearance, he becomes convinced that the magician is innocent. Meanwhile, the Sayyed family is unsettled by strange occurrences in the villa. Ayaan finds a box of seashells and encounters a childlike apparition. Noorie, despite her severe allergy to dogs, senses one in the house and sees Iqbal taking food to the attic. Gulnaar also notices unexplained disturbances. The family is further shaken when locals mark the villa with the word 'kafir', and hostility from the town grows. Another local boy, Faisal, soon disappears in similar circumstances. Ridwaan questions Shoaib's school principal, Zainab, while Noorie struggles to settle in and befriends a local boy, Khalid. After more unsettling incidents, Noorie herself vanishes.
Ridwaan traces Khalid and discovers that he has been preaching religious extremism to local children and has persuaded Noorie to join the militants before her disappearance. Khalid is arrested, and Ridwaan learns of an underground network funded by the ISI that recruits and brainwashes children for militant training in Pakistan. Its unseen leader, “Bhaijaan”, and area commander, Juneid, oversee the operation. Khalid also reveals that the children were abducted by unknown forces before they could be transported, although the militants blamed the police.
At the villa, Gulnaar discovers that it once belonged to a Kashmiri Pandit family. Guided by a female apparition, she finds a hidden room filled with Kashmiri Shaivite symbols and enters a spectral realm where the missing children are being protected “from the poison filled in their brain and heart”. She tells Ridwaan, but he remains sceptical until she warns him that the apparitions will next abduct Yassir, Juneid's nephew.
Ridwaan rushes to stop Yassir from being trafficked to Pakistan, but the apparitions take him away in front of Ridwaan, finally convincing him that the supernatural is real. That night, Ridwaan returns to the villa for the ritual offering of food with Gulnaar and Iqbal in the attic. Through Ayaan, who is briefly possessed by a girl named Eela Sapru, the family learns that the villa's former occupants, the Saprus, were massacred by militants decades earlier after being betrayed. The spirits of the murdered family, including their dog, now protect children from radicalisation. Zainab also arrives at the villa with police officers after receiving a death threat.
Juneid and his militants then attack the villa. In the ensuing confrontation, Ridwaan and Gulnaar witness the Sapru family's final moments. Dr. Kamlanand Sapru, his wife Mansi, their daughter Eela, and their caretaker Iqbal were preparing to flee, but waited for their elder son, Sharad. Iqbal tried to persuade them to leave, but the militants arrived, cut out his tongue for helping the 'kafirs', killed Dr. Kamlanand and the family's pet dog, and hunted the others through the house. Eela's Muslim friend betrayed Mansi and Eela by revealing their hiding place, leading to their deaths.
In the present, Iqbal is killed in the fight, Gulnaar becomes possessed by Mansi Sapru, and the vengeful spirits help drive off the militants. Juneid tries to escape with Zainab as a hostage, but a possessed Gulnaar shoots Zainab, and Ridwaan kills Juneid. The family then discovers that “Bhaijaan” was actually Zainab, who had also betrayed the Sapru family in the past. The missing children, including Noorie, are returned, and the Sayyeds reconcile. A final dedication honours the Kashmiri Pandit community. Six months later, the Sayyeds visit Dr. Sharad Sapru, the Sapru family's sole surviving heir, and Ayaan returns Eela's seashell box to him.