A Version of the Truth: A Campus Secret

By Prashant Mishra

Armaan Suri has built a careful life as a junior architect in a border town in Punjab, avoiding the questions that ended an old friendship. At 27, that restraint collapses when Armaan recognises a supposedly missing stranger in the background of a livestream. The return of a colleague who may be protecting the culprit makes the search both intimate and unreliable. Their evidence suggests that the evidence against the accused was generated from compromised biometric data. Then a powerful sponsor threatens everyone’s livelihood. To protect the wrongfully accused, Armaan may have to protect a family member who may be guilty. The clue hidden in a child’s map of places adults deny exist proves that the most convincing evidence was true but belonged to a different crime. A parallel thread follows the effort to protect a source who refuses anonymity, while a festival deadline leaves no room for delay.