Heist movies are a fun watch if they are written and put together cleverly. There cannot be any scope for plot holes or a loophole when it comes to this genre. This is the reason the Ocean’s series of films are still considered cult classics. These Steven Soderbergh films intelligently blend drama and class in their narratives, making them some of the most revered films of the 2000s. Sadly, Hindi cinema has not been able to make any engaging films in this genre. Sikandar ka Muqaddar, the brand new Netflix Original directed by Neeraj Pandey focuses more on finding the mastermind than the heist itself.
Spoilers Ahead
What happened at the diamond exhibition?
Sikandar ka Muqaddar began in the city of Mumbai in the mid-2000s, where Kamini Singh, along with her boss, Mangesh Desai, were setting up their company’s kiosk for their diamond exhibition. Sikandar Sharma was a computer technician who was helping another diamond store employee. The police at the exhibition received a phone call from a man who read out a note revealing that a robbery was about to take place. The police were quick to evacuate the exhibition hall and moved everybody to the refuge hall. This included Sikandar, Kamini, and her boss, Mangesh. The robbers were neutralized in no time, but when the exhibitors were brought back to their designated kiosks, Kamini was the first person to notice that their red diamond solitaires worth INR 60 crores had been stolen.
Jaswinder Singh, the local sub-inspector, was called in to investigate the robbery. He had a 100% track record, and in his pursuit to maintain that, he stated the red solitaire diamonds were stolen by someone from the refuge area. He picked Sikandar, Kamini, and Mangesh as the three suspects because of their proximity to the kiosk where the diamonds were kept. He arrested, interrogated, and strip searched them, but all of them claimed to be innocent and said they did not know the location of the diamond.
Why did Jaswinder want to meet Sikandar?
A decade later, Jaswinder Singh was suspended from his job for drinking continuously while on duty. His wife Kaushalya also divorced him as they had grown estranged over the years. He was at his lowest point when he contacted Sikandar, who was now working in Abu Dhabi in the UAE, and apologized for putting him through an ordeal. Jaswinder requested Sikandar to meet him in Mumbai as the latter was not on active duty anymore. Sikandar was happy and broke down as he remembered what he had been put through. Jaswinder’s apology was long overdue, and he felt relieved to no longer be burdened by the crime that had been following him.
What was Sikandar’s story?
Sikandar, on landing in Mumbai, met his best friend Manish, who had helped him through his worst times. Sikandar let him know he had another job to finish and headed to meet Jaswinder. Both poured their hearts out and spoke about the heist and the aftermath of the arrest. Sikandar revealed that he, along with Kamini and Mangesh, faced a lot of backlash after being granted bail. Sikandar lost the home he lived in, and eventually his mother passed away as well. Even after the bail, he was unable to find a job and was forced to move to Agra to work in a glass factory.
Amidst all of this, Sikandar and Kamini fell in love, and she moved with him to Agra to start a new life as a married couple. Kamini before was a single mother who had a son and a younger sister to take care of. Their problems seemed to have been solved when all three of them were acquitted by the court on the grounds of lack of evidence. To Sikandar’s horror, Kamini got sick; his landlord threw out his family, stating he was a thief. On the same night, his money was stolen and his phone was broken. Sikandar tried to kill himself as he had reached a low point in his life, but a car horn snapped him out of that mindset. Manish helped him get a job in Abu Dhabi, and Sikandar’s life was back on track as he was slowly able to repay the debt and earn well for Kamini and the family.
Sikandar claimed to have been in a relationship with a Mumbai-based colleague named Tabassum. Though they never confessed their love, their attraction was visible. The relationship came to a standstill when he learned she was a dancer at a bar in Mumbai, and he assumed it was Jaswinder who’d hired her to tail him. Tabassum rebuffed those claims and let him know she didn’t know anyone named Jaswinder.
Did Jaswinder admit to having sabotaged Sikandar?
Jaswinder admitted that he orchestrated everything around Sikandar in the hope he would resort to using the red solitaires. Jaswinder claimed he was sure Sikander had those precious stones. Jaswinder confessed that Sikander was rendered homeless and jobless in Mumbai on his insistence. Kamini had also stolen a white diamond on the day of the exhibition, and in her pursuit to sell it, she was caught by Jaswinder. Jaswinder revealed all of this to Sikandar and stated that Kamini, to avoid jail time, agreed to keep an eye on her husband. She would also let Jaswinder know if her husband made any moves involving making use of the solitaires. She eventually stopped sending reports to Jaswinder, as he assumed she had fallen in love with Sikandar and his honest efforts to keep the family afloat.
After Sikandar, Kamini, and Mangesh were acquitted, Jaswinder used their involvement in the robbery as a way to throw the couple out of their home in Agra. Jaswinder was behind everything that went wrong in Sikander’s life ever since he was acquitted for the theft, including the car horn that changed his mind about killing himself. The car was driven by Jaswinder, as he wanted Sikandar to remain alive. An angry Sikandar slapped Jaswinder out of pure agony. An angry Sikandar confronted Kamini, who was apologetic for her actions. Sikandar, however, was in no mood to reconcile, as he felt she’d betrayed him at his lowest moment. He let her know about his plan to divorce her and pay her monthly maintenance. Kamini was dejected, but according to him, she’d lost the right to make any decisions about the relationship the second her discretion was revealed.
Who hid the red solitaire diamonds?
After having confronted his wife Kamini, Sikandar left on a trip to a town in rural Maharashtra. Once he got there, he went to a large-scale garden that was operated by his friend from the city, Priya Sawant. Priya was his neighbor/best friend and an ex-nurse who was happy to see him after many years. It was finally revealed that Priya had safely stored the red diamonds beneath the plants she considered special. The diamonds were given to her by Sikandar, who was indeed the mastermind behind the theft of these precious stones. This reveal was a long time coming, and it was finally time for the makers to unveil that Jaswinder’s instincts had been accurate, as Sikandar was indeed the culprit. He was helped by someone outside of the exhibition hall. It was his friend Priya Sawant and all these years he was able to keep his secret intact by trusting her with it.
Priya and Sikandar had been friends for too long, and she may have loved him at one point. This could be the reason why she agreed to help and not cheat him over the years. Sikandar indeed played this game for the long run, as he did not once look back and tried to use these diamonds for his benefit. He may have planned everything in advance, and it was time for the audience to learn how he safely delivered the diamonds to Priya.
Was Sikandar arrested?
It was presumed this was the end of the movie, since Sikandar got away with a ten-year-old crime for the second time. Sikandar was carrying the plant with him and hoped to carry these diamonds back to the UAE so that he could stay away from the Indian legal system. Sikandar was confident about the success of his long-term plan, but to his horror, Jaswinder was behind him, revealing that the man had not stopped pursuing Sikandar, as his instincts had never let him. Jaswinder was probably used to tailing Sikandar, and this time he hit the jackpot by catching the man red-handed. On handcuffing Sikandar, Jaswinder was keen to find out how he carried out the heist without anyone knowing. Sikandar revealed that he was working for many merchants who were a part of the exhibition. While at the event, he got acquainted with Tukaram, one of the organizers of the exhibition, who asked him to help a group with a computer-related thing. On reaching that place, Sikandar realized the group he was helping were robbers, and they would be looting the exhibition. He stayed in the place using the computer glitch as an excuse to find out what they were up to. On the day of the robbery, he’d passed off a letter to the man he noticed every day at the bus stand. The man’s phone call to the police helped Sikandar in creating the chaos, a ruse to rob the red diamonds. Â
Priya, who was a part of the medical team that carried away the dead bodies of the robbers. She was handed over the red diamonds by Sikandar on her way out. Sikandar led his life normally by keeping everyone away from his secret, including Kamini. This makes him unfaithful in a way, as he was not honest with his wife. Since Sikandar has been established as a hypocrite, and he knows it, he had hoped to go back to the UAE and begin his life with Tabassum. Everything was going as per plan, as Sikandar revealed that he knew he was sabotaged in Agra as bad things had happened to him back to back. It felt like it could not be a coincidence that he would be put through rough times of such proportions. Sikandar assumed since Jaswinder had confessed to having sabotaged him and apologized, he could now live his life the way he wanted, and go ahead and divorce Kamini and marry Tabassum.
The end was too convoluted as one revelation after another kept coming, which was too much to take. Jaswinder revealed that he had not stopped going after Sikandar. His plan was to feign admitting defeat, which would massage Sikandar’s ego and make way to him finally retrieving the diamonds. Jaswinder slapped him as a retaliation for Sikandar’s hit. Sikandar’s last hope was to bribe Jaswinder to keep him quiet and stop him reopening the case. Sikandar had confessed, but it was only his word against Jaswinder’s, who was now a suspended cop. The statement would not work without the presence of a police officer or a recording device that preserved Sikandar’s confession. This was the reason Sikandar did not give up on the idea of bribing Jaswinder in the hope that the latter would agree, keep a part of the money, and let the mastermind.Â
Sikandar ka Muqaddar ended with Sikandar and Jaswinder, the latter pondering over the prospect of taking the money from the sale of the diamonds and wondering if he should keep it as he will never be able to prove the man in front of him guilty. The cliffhanger ending on the cliffside of a mountain proves that there might be a second part of the film.
