The Empty Hostel Room of Platform Nine

By Adeeba Rashid

Armaan Suri has built a careful life as a startup founder in a border town in Punjab, avoiding the questions that ended an old friendship. At 27, that restraint collapses when Armaan is named as beneficiary in the will of someone they never met. 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 rehearsal recording captured by mistake proves that the most convincing evidence was true but belonged to a different crime. A parallel thread follows the effort to train for a qualifying tournament, while the collaborator may be feeding information to the opposition.