Kathal is a comedy film that follows a cop who is instructed to investigate the peculiar case of missing Kathals (jackfruits) from a local politician’s garden. It is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Mahima Basor is a cop in the fictional town of Moba. She arrests a local goon named Veer Singh but is given no credit by the Superintendent, who claims in a press conference that he was the one who captured him.
But Mahima isn’t overly concerned with this. She is also revealed to be in a relationship with constable Saurabh Dwivedi.
Munnalal Pateria, a local politician, calls the police force when his ‘uncle hong’ breed of kathals get stolen, much to the surprise of the cops.
The SP instructs Mahima to solve the case, despite her insistence that there are more important cases to solve than missing fruits.
Anuj, a local journalist, attempts to find information regarding the case, but Mahima tells him that he should wait for the investigation to be over.
Mahima is told that the gardener was fired recently and that his phone is switched off. She also spots the gardener’s daughter in one of the pictures of the garden.
Another constable tells Saurabh that his car is missing, but he does not pay heed and is only concerned with putting up pictures of the missing kathals.
Munnalal tells her he was fired because he tried to intimidate his son. He keeps piling the pressure on the police to find his kathals, even asking the SP to resign if he is unsuccessful.
SP promises Mahima that she will be promoted to DSP if she solves the case. She states that her priority is for Saurabh to be promoted instead.
She and Saurabh were supposed to get married when they were constables but she got promoted to inspector, causing disharmony between the two families. The SP promises to give him a special recommendation.
The police start a widespread search for the missing fruit, but despite their best efforts, they cannot find it.
One day, the gardener, Birwa, shows up at the police station to lodge a complaint about his missing daughter, Amiya. Mahima quickly arrests him and tells the SP they have found the culprit.
Birwa says he was not at fault and had not intimidated the politician’s son. He had also tried to file a complaint for his missing daughter but Saurabh neglected it.
This causes a rift between Mahima and Saurabh, with the former disappointed in his recent behaviour as a cop. He had freely been beating up the poor and ignoring important complaints.
The SP tells Mahima to put the blame on Birwa and cook up any story. She tells the press that his daughter had stolen the kathals and begins an investigation to find Amiya.
Mahima realises that just like Amiya, countless women have gone missing in the town but no proper investigation was ever carried out. She vows to not let Amiya become just another page in that file.
Mahima and Kunti, another constable, search the local Karehra village, which is also where the reporter Anuj hails from.
Saurabh decides to carry out his own investigation, reaching out to the cyber cell to get information on outside numbers that have been active in Karehra since Amiya was abducted.
Amiya’s friends tell Mahima that she frequented a tobacco vendor in the village. Saurabh tracks three numbers to an optical store but is beaten up by the owners when he tries to question them.
Mahima finds the tobacco vendor and forces him to reveal when he saw Amiya last. He tells them that she tried getting tobacco from him but did not have money.
Three men offered her some and when the vendor was distracted, all four went missing alongside the Tata Nano beside them.
Anuj finds Birwa and asks him whether Amiya had truly stolen the kathals, and he tells him that this is false.
To prevent Anuj from broadcasting this and halting the search, she offers even an even more enticing story for him to cover; the 43 missing women of Moba.
Saurabh tells Mahima about the incident at the optical store, and she is happy to know he did not fight back just because she had told him not to be violent.
The cops reach the store and the owner tells them that the culprit is Bhoora, a helper at the store who used his ID to register the sim cards.
Kathals ending explained in detail:
Why is Anuj arrested?
The police begin tracking the purple Nano through CCTV footage. Anuj broadcasts the story of the missing girls and catches the authorities’ attention.
As Anuj watches the news alongside his whole family, they are shocked to see Mahima and the police on their doorstep.
Anuj thinks she has come to congratulate him. However, when she tells him she has to arrest him for trying to defame the country, he is overjoyed. He believes this will propel him to international stardom.
Do the cops find Amiya?
Mahima tracks the car to Chhatarpur in Madhya Pradesh and the cops travel to catch them. They find footage of the three goons refilling petrol worth Rs 200 at a petrol pump.
A local dhaba owner tells them he never saw the car. This means that they are between the petrol pump and the dhaba.
Amiya is held hostage by the three and tries to escape, but ends up getting caught. The cell phones of the goons are turned back on and they are traced to the jungle.
But by the time they reach, they have fled. Mahima asks the dhaba owner whether there is a shop that sells pure khowa jalebi. He answers that Gulab Seth in Panna does.
Bhoora used to bring them for the owner of the optical store while he worked there. And the shop can only be in Panna, which is the one place that sells pure khowa jalebi.
With Rs. 200 petrol, they could have only reached Panna. And this turns out to be the case. The three goons attempt to sell Amiya to Gulab Seth, who acts as a middleman for dealers looking to buy girls for prostitution.
The cops ambush his house and after some chasing around, Gulab Seth falls down from the roof and all of them are captured.
What is the court’s verdict on Amiya and Mahima?
During the court hearing, Munnalal and his lawyer try to blame Amiya for stealing the kathals. They cite her ‘criminal tendencies’ as the reason.
Birwa tells the judge that Mahima lied about Amiya stealing the kathals just to force an investigation to find her, misleading the original investigation in the process.
Despite this, the judge commends her courage to do the right thing and acquits her and Amiya of any charges, leaving Munnalal furious.
Do Mahima and Saurabh get married?
For locating Amiya, Saurabh gets a promotion to sub-inspector. However, Mahima is promoted to DSP as well.
She has apprehension about their marriage, but Saurabh assures that he will convince his father and that they work for the same police force, so it does not matter.
Where are the Kathals?
In a mid-credits scene, the kathals are missing again. The true culprits are finally revealed. The local monkeys have been stealing them and eating them on the roof.
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