The second episode of Voot Select’s Asur: Welcome to Your Dark Side again starts with a flashback in Varanasi. This time we’re taken 18 years back into the mysterious boy’s life. The boy sits with a group of Aghori saints who bless him. At home, his father comes back and sees that his son is skimming through the pages of Gita. His father scolds him and tells him to read it rather than skimming through it. The son replies that this is his way of reading. Furious, his father tests his knowledge of the Gita and the son promptly answers his questions. His father calls him “Asur ka avatar”.  We learn that the boy’s name is Shubh. Shubh’s grandfather tells Shubh’s father to stop harbouring animosity against Shubh. Shubh’s mother died giving birth to him and his father considers Shubh as a bad omen. Shubh is also a peculiar kid because he learned to walk and speak at an earlier stage than most kids. His father repeatedly calls him ‘Asur’. Angry, Shubh steps out of his house and unchains a puppy. Next, we see havan flames and the puppy’s chain alongside it. Did Shubh sacrifice the puppy in the fire?

In the present day, the CBI team is present at DJ’s home to console him. DJ narrates the series of events that took place before he saw the video of Sandhya’s murder. Lolark plays the video and the team watches it.

Another team reaches Sandhya’s kitchen. They interrogate the worker who called the police. She tells them that Sandhya had regular fights with DJ. The killer has blocked the CCTV inside the kitchen. The place was closed for the last 5 days.

Looking at the video at DJ’s house, the team notices that the killer wears the same mask that was found with Sandhya’s body. The mask has some connection with Hindu mythology. DJ tells them that Sandhya was in Bangalore for the last one week and they only talked through text messages. DJ notices a tattoo on the masked killer’s neck. His boss tells him that the team will take it from here and DJ can rest and recuperate from his loss.

Next, Nikhil lands in Delhi. He will replace DJ in the investigation of the murders.

In Dimapur, Nagaland, a man’s body is found with the same mask lying beside it. The body’s eyes have been sealed.

CBI asks Nikhil about the messages that he had been getting about the coordinates of murder locations. We learn that Nikhil and DJ had a fallout ten years ago and Nikhil immediately quit CBI after that.

Nikhil meets Lolark and looks at the photos of the crime. He sees the neck tattoo of the killer and says that the tattoo is of a Naga tribe. Lolark immediately forwards the photo of the tattoo to Nagaland police.

In Nagaland, police are in the jungle with the man’s body when an inspector receives the photo of the tattoo. He finds that the body has the same tattoo in the same place.

Lolark tells Nusrat that a body has been found in Dimapur with the same mask and tattoo. He requests her to go to Dimapur to collect samples because they can’t trust local police. Nusrat agrees reluctantly.

Nikhil visits DJ and assures him that he will catch the killer. DJ tells him that Sandhya was having an affair and wanted a divorce from DJ.

Rasul, a tech expert at CBI and a chess enthusiast, tells Lolark that he is working on the killer’s voice sample and the analysis will be ready by evening. They watch the CCTV outside Sandhya’s kitchen where the killer can be seen. His height looks around 5’10”. The killer is left-handed and has the keys to Sandhya’s kitchen. Lolark says, “Aisa lag raha hai banda khud ke hi ghar mein ja raha hai”.

Nusrat reaches Dimapur police station with Ankit. She looks at the body and asks the police if it has been identified. The man’s name is Lal Thanzara and he has many criminal records. He also seems to be a drug addict. Due to the lack of expertise of the police, Nusrat instructs that the body be sent to Delhi. She asks Ankit to stay in Dimapur and collect Lal’s samples from his home.

Late night at the CBI office, Lolark and Nikhil analyse the series of murders – an Air India pilot, a renowned painter, and Sandhya. Nikhil wonders why the killer deviated from his modus operandi and disfigured Sandhya’s body. Lolark leaves since he has to attend to his family. Nikhil is alone at the office and Nusrat comes back from Dimapur. They greet each other and there is a bit of awkwardness between the two. She learns that he is married. They talk about the case and Nusrat tells Nikhil that DJ has been behaving a bit off lately. Special permission is needed to conduct an autopsy at night but they break the rule and go ahead with conducting Lal Thanzara’a autopsy. Nikhil concludes that Lal had asthma and the murderer made use of this illness. Nikhil finds an enzyme called ‘Aquazyme’ in Lal’s body and asks Nusrat to check for the same in Sandhya’s body.

Rasul finds a hidden GPS in Sandhya’s car. Lolark introduces Rasul to Nikhil. Rasul tells the team that the killer had access to both Sandhya’s kitchen and car. On analysing Sandhya’s phone, Rasul finds out that all messages on the day of the murder had been sent from the same address. Surprisingly, it is DJ’s address. Rasul also checks DJ’s phone for signs of tampering but can’t find any. The team is taken aback.

In Dimapur, Ankit reaches Lal’s house along with the police and they collect samples.

Nusrat tells Nikhil that Sandhya’s autopsy suggested that she had a late abortion. Nikhil starts to formulate a theory that Sandhya might have been pregnant with another man’s child and hence, she got it aborted. Nusrat feels that this is DJ and Sandhya’s personal matter and they shouldn’t talk about it.

Lal’s samples from Dimapur reach the CBI office in Delhi. Nikhil sends Lal’s asthma pump for testing. Some cash is also retrieved from Lal’s house and Nikhil asks an officer to match the fingerprints on the notes with the general database and also with everyone who is even remotely involved in the case including DJ.

Rasul finds out that the GPS in Sandhya’s car and a hidden camera are directly linked to DJ’s laptop. Rasul also discovers that the killer’s gait completely matches Lal’s gait. Rasul shows all this to Lolark. Lolark asks for Lal’s travel records which show Lal’s recent flights from Dimapur to Delhi and back.

Nikhil shares his theory about Sandhya’s murder with the whole team. He suspects that DJ hired a contract killer Lal Thanzara to get Sandhya killed since she was having an extra-marital affair. Nikhil believes that DJ met Lal when he travelled to Nagaland for a conference. DJ got Sandhya killed on the night she had to leave for Bangalore so that nobody would miss her for one week. DJ smartly followed the modus operandi of other murders in Sandhya’s murder to make it look like another serial killing and then replaced Lal’s asthma pump with a barbiturate pump so as to poison him dead. All this requires deep medical knowledge and thus, Nikhil believes that DJ is the murderer. Even the fingerprints on the money notes match 70% with DJ’s fingerprints. Nikhil’s boss says that arresting DJ is the toughest decision of his life.

Nikhil wants to talk to DJ before they arrest him. He tells DJ his theory about him. DJ thinks that the evidence has been fabricated and someone is trying to frame him. Finally, the CBI arrests DJ. Interestingly, the actual killer watches this scene through CCTV.

This episode of Asur: Welcome to Your Dark Side is fast-paced and thrilling. I think that Nikhil is trying to frame DJ for the murder because he wants to take revenge on DJ for something that happened in the past. I can’t wait to watch the next episode!

Episode Rating: 4/5