The fourth episode of Asur: Welcome to Your Dark Side opens in Varanasi, 11 years ago. We’re taken back to the opening scene of the show – Shubh and his father perform a havan with a man. In this episode of Asur, we’re shown that the third man is DJ. It looks like he is there for his father’s veneration. During the process, Shubh’s father constantly coughs and asks for water. DJ eyes Shubh. Cut to Shubh’s father being dead. DJ sees his body and is surprised. At a closer look, he figures out that the cause of his death is poisoning and not drowning. DJ then goes up to Shubh to offer his condolences but Shubh stands unaffected. Shubh says to DJ that he will complete the veneration for DJ’s father the next morning. DJ finds this strange.

In the present day at the CBI office, Rasul tries to trace a car’s route from the footage of the roads’ CCTV cameras. Nikhil is missing and the team is trying to trace where the killer could have taken him. Nikhil’s family reaches India.

Naina and Riya reach Nikhil’s cabin. Naina grows impatient after waiting for a long time to see Nikhil. Lolark requests Nusrat to talk to Naina and tell her the truth. Nusrat goes into Nikhil’s cabin and tells Naina that her husband is missing. Naina is devastated. Nusrat assures her that the CBI will find Nikhil. Furious and tense, Naina takes Riya and leaves.

Nikhil wakes up at a mysterious place. The place has a bed, a washroom, a CCTV camera, a landline phone, a television and some books on forensic science. Nikhil dials 100 on the phone but the kidnapper cum killer picks up on the other side. He chants a Sanskrit shloka. After talking in circles, the killer says that Nikhil will be his companion in his mission just like Krishna was Arjuna’s companion in the Mahabharata. To Nikhil’s surprise, the killer repeats what Nikhil had said in one of his lectures at the FBI, “There is a difference between a dead body and the dead”

Lolark visits DJ at Central Jail and tells him about Nikhil’s kidnapping. DJ believes that the kidnapper planned to target both DJ and Nikhil. Lolark gives DJ a bundle of old case files on which Nikhil and DJ worked together in the past. In jail, DJ analyses each old case to find some connection with what’s happening in the present.

The kidnapper sends food to Nikhil through an opening in the wall and also calls him on the phone. However, Nikhil throws away the food and disconnects the telephone line in rebellion. To escape the kidnapper’s gaze, Nikhil goes into the washroom and on the wall, writes the points that he observes about the kidnapper like his age, IQ and knowledge of intellectual subjects like philosophy and mythology. He comes out of the washroom and sees live footage of his wife and daughter on the television. Panicking, he immediately connects the telephone line back. The kidnapper tells him to cooperate with him if Nikhil wants to keep his family safe. He tells Nikhil to protect his family by helping the kidnapper protect his religion. The kidnapper cuts the call and Nikhil has a breakdown. After a lot of melodrama, the kidnapper sends Nikhil the profile of a woman named Abhilasha Chandran and asks him how he should murder her. She conducts brain-mapping experiments. On learning about her routine, Nikhil suggests a plan to the kidnapper. She has a dental appointment in a few days for the capping of her tooth. The kidnapper should replace her titanium dental cap with an iron dental cap. During her brain-mapping experiments, she takes her readings first as standard readings. The kidnapper should raise the magnetic strength of the MRI machine which will lead to the tooth acting as a bullet. The kidnapper follows this whole process and Abhilasha suffers and dies with the dental cap pushing out of her head. Nikhil tells the kidnapper to dispose of the body where the evidence can be diluted i.e., a lake. The kidnapper disposes of her body in a car and pushes it inside a lake.

CBI learns about another murder and reaches the lake. However, Nusrat and Lolark don’t have underwater crime scene expertise. The divers take the body out.

In jail, DJ is busy tracking the killer from his past records. Suddenly, he remembers what happened in Varanasi. We’re taken into the past where Shubh completes DJ’s father’s veneration the next day after Shubh’s father’s death. DJ grows suspicious of him and says that he feels that Shubh knew about his father’s death beforehand. DJ asks Shubh if he knows who poisoned his father. Shubh doesn’t pay much heed to DJ’s questions.

Back to the present, Lolark and Nusrat visit DJ in jail to ask for his help in the underwater crime scene. It will be unofficial, of course. DJ changes his attire and wears the CBI jacket. DJ tells Lolark to get information about an imprisoned boy in Varanasi. Nusrat and Lolark take DJ to the crime scene. They see that the body’s right hand’s index finger is cut. Looking at the circumstances in which the body was found, DJ asks Nusrat if burnt oil was present on the water’s surface. Nusrat says yes. DJ reveals that Nikhil is behind this murder because DJ and Nikhil worked on a case in the past in which the body was dumped in the same way. DJ believes that Nikhil is trying to give him a message.

This episode of Asur: Welcome to Your Dark Side doesn’t reveal much about the kidnapper but past connections are uncovered. How will Nikhil communicate with DJ to get out of the kidnapper’s captivity?

Episode Rating: 3/5