Sethi pieced together the timeline. Sher Khan, alias Dilawar Khan, had likely duplicated the bank’s safe key, stolen the cash, and framed Sadhuram. But something had gone wrong—Sher Khan was killed, and Sadhuram, in possession of the stolen money, had fled. Bajrang, unwittingly, had become entangled when Sher Khan’s body ended up in his taxi

In the bustling heart of 1960s Bombay, where neon signs flickered over crowded bazaars and taxis honked through narrow lanes, a peculiar case landed on the desk of Inspector Vikram Sethi. A wiry man with a sharp mustache and sharper instincts, Sethi was known for unraveling mysteries that baffled the city’s police force. This time, the mystery was rooted in a bank heist gone awry, inspired by the chaotic events of Sadhu Aur Shaitaan.

It began with a call from the manager of Bombay Central Bank, Mr. Nazir Hussain, a stout man with a perpetually furrowed brow. “Inspector, we’ve been robbed!” he gasped over the phone. “Ten lakhs in cash, gone! And our clerk, Sadhuram, is missing!” Sethi adjusted his cap, grabbed his notepad, and sped to the bank in his weathered Ambassador.

At the bank, chaos reigned. Tellers whispered nervously, and constables cordoned off the vault. Nazir explained that Sadhuram, a meek, bespectacled clerk known for his honesty, had been the last to handle the cash before it vanished. “He’s been with us for years,” Nazir said, wringing his hands. “But now he’s gone, and so is the money!”

Sethi’s first lead came from a taxi driver named Bajrang, a jovial man with a penchant for storytelling. Bajrang’s taxi was parked outside the bank the night of the robbery, and he claimed to have seen Sadhuram fleeing the scene, clutching a bulging satchel. “But Inspector,” Bajrang added, scratching his head, “there was another man with him—a shady type, calling himself Sher Khan. Looked like trouble, that one.”

Sher Khan. The name rang a bell. Sethi’s informants had whispered about a notorious conman, a master of aliases, who’d been fleecing banks across the city. Could Sher Khan be the “Shaitan” to Sadhuram’s “Sadhu”? Sethi decided to track down Sadhuram, hoping the clerk would lead him to the elusive criminal.

His search took him to a rundown chawl in Dadar, where Sadhuram’s neighbor, a schoolteacher named Vidya, confirmed he’d been acting strange. “He was terrified,” she said, her eyes wide. “Said someone was after him, someone he trusted.” Vidya mentioned a visitor—Sher Khan, posing as Sadhuram’s childhood friend. The plot thickened. Sethi suspected Sher Khan had manipulated Sadhuram, perhaps framing him for the heist.

The trail led to a seedy bar in Colaba, a haunt for Bombay’s underbelly. There, Sethi spotted a man matching Sher Khan’s description: tall, slick-haired, with a scar across his cheek. But before Sethi could approach, the man slipped out the back. A chase ensued through rain-soaked alleys, Sethi’s boots splashing in puddles as he pursued his quarry. Cornered in a dead-end, the man turned, but it wasn’t Sher Khan—it was a decoy, paid to throw Sethi off.

Frustrated, Sethi returned to Bajrang, whose taxi had become an unlikely clue. Bajrang, now nervous, admitted he’d found something odd in his cab the night of the robbery: a bloodstained knife and a key stamped with the bank’s logo. “I didn’t kill anyone, Inspector!” Bajrang pleaded. “But there was a body in my backseat—Sher Khan’s! It’s gone now, I swear!” Sethi’s gut told him Bajrang was no murderer, but the body’s disappearance was troubling. Was Sher Khan dead, or was this another of his tricks?

Sethi pieced together the timeline. Sher Khan, alias Dilawar Khan, had likely duplicated the bank’s safe key, stolen the cash, and framed Sadhuram. But something had gone wrong—Sher Khan was killed, and Sadhuram, in possession of the stolen money, had fled. Bajrang, unwittingly, had become entangled when Sher Khan’s body ended up in his taxi. The question was: who killed the Shaitan, and where was Sadhuram?

A breakthrough came from an unexpected source—Vidya’s brother, Dinanath, a drama artist with a flair for eavesdropping. Dinanath had overheard Sher Khan boasting about a hideout in a derelict warehouse near the docks. Sethi, with a small team, raided the warehouse at dawn. Inside, they found Sadhuram, disheveled and clutching the satchel of cash. “I didn’t steal it!” he cried. “Sher Khan forced me to help him, then tried to kill me! I fought back, and… he fell on his own knife!”

Sadhuram’s story checked out. The knife in Bajrang’s taxi matched the wounds described, and the key was indeed a duplicate of the bank’s. Sher Khan, it seemed, had underestimated the “Sadhu” he’d tried to corrupt. Sadhuram, in a moment of desperation, had turned the tables on his tormentor. The body’s disappearance was the work of Sher Khan’s accomplices, who’d cleaned up to protect their operation.

Sethi arrested the remaining gang members, recovered the cash, and cleared Sadhuram and Bajrang’s names. As he sat in his office, sipping chai, he reflected on the case. It was a tale of good versus evil, where the humble Sadhuram had outwitted the devilish Shaitan. Bombay’s streets buzzed with the story, and Sethi, lighting a cigarette, knew he’d just closed another chapter in the city’s endless saga of crime and redemption.