Drishyam 3 Ending Explained: Does Vijay Salgaonkar Get Caught?

You know Drishyam is a cult film when a date mentioned in it is almost as famous as the literal national holiday it’s set on. Just open your phone on 2nd October, and more than Gandhi Jayanti, you’ll be reminded of what Vijay Salgaonkar and his family were doing in Panaji on the long weekend. The best part is that this year’s October 2nd comes with the final instalment of one of Bollywood’s greatest thriller franchises in recent times. Here’s how the story draws to a close in Drishyam: The Conclusion.

Drishyam 2 follows Sam’s mother, Inspector Meera Deshmukh (Tabu), reopening the case of her son’s death after a convict named David Braganza testifies that he had seen Vijay come out of the construction site near the police station. The station is dug up. A skeleton is found. IG Tarun Ahlawat (Akshaye Khanna) goes to all sorts of lengths to spy on the family.

Yet, in the end, it all falls flat. Turns out, the skeleton’s DNA does not match Sam's (Vijay had had the remains replaced with those of someone else). The case that Ahlawat and Deshmukh had made up is of no use, because Vijay’s lawyer argues that it matches the plot of a book (named Drishyam) word for word; the police are just making up the case from a storybook just to frame him.

So Vijay Salgaonkar walks away scot-free, and even though the original writer of the book confesses the truth to Ahlawat and the Deshmukh family, the court has already closed the case due to lack of evidence.

We now pick up a few months after the events of Drishyam 2. Meera Deshmukh is suicidal; she knows the truth about the case, but can’t prove it at all. At this point, justice be damned, she needs revenge. Seeing her deteriorating condition, her husband, Sameer (Rajat Kapoor) approaches SP Rajvir Singh Tomar (Jaideep Ahlawat) to reopen the case. This time, however, the case is filed not to find out who killed Sam Deshmukh, but to prove that the bodies were exchanged before the DNA testing, because, surprise, surprise, SP Tomar has DNA proof stating that Sam’s body was actually buried in the police station for some time.D

So now the game of cat-and-mouse begins again. Vijay’s daughter Anju’s marriage proposals are soiled (one of the proposals turns out to be Tomar’s spy). The new member of the villain team, lawyer Indrajith Shetty (Prakash Raj), urges the officers to use the voice tapes that undercover officers Shiv and Jenny had recovered when they were pretending to be Vijay’s neighbours in the second movie.

On top of this, Raghu (the medical college guard Vijay befriended to get the keys to the college and swap the bodies) and Savio (the grave digger at the church from which Vijay took the alternate body) give their statements against Vijay. The case is now set. They just have to prove that the grave of the boy Vijay replaced Sam’s remains with, Christopher Pinto, is indeed empty.

Cut to the court proceedings, where Savio retracts his statement, while Raghu maintains his. The voice recordings from the Salgaonkar house from July 23, 2021 are played (July 23 was when the body switch happened), et voila! In the climax, the voice recordings contain Vijay’s voice; he seems to be at home with his family the entire time. Meanwhile, the police dig up Christopher Pinto’s grave after some resistance, to find a skeleton right there. If the skeleton was never removed from its grave, there’s no way it would have been used as a decoy for Sam.

Wait a second, didn’t we see Vijay switching the evidence at the end of Drishyam 2? What is all this then? Plus, how was he at home on July 23? As it happens, Vijay had figured out that their neighbours could be spies, so he had pre-recorded a few voice notes which the family played when Vijay was outside. Since there were no cameras, no one saw Vijay not being there.

Which leaves us with the question about the skeleton. The truth is, there is no human skeleton in Christopher Pinto’s grave. Vijay, being a movie producer that he is, has been working with a prop artist for a project. To tie the final loose threads of the Sam Deshmukh murder case, he had asked this prop artist to make a very realistic human skeleton, which he put in Pinto’s grave after the real remains of Christopher Pinto were sent to the police for the DNA test.

Simple. Vijay has been attending church regularly for some time now, and under the guise of a nun, he has been spreading rumours that the church will be torn down. This creates fear among the churchgoers, and now they are too wary of the government and the police to let them go ahead with disturbing the remains of the dead. When they see the skeleton, it’s enough proof for them not to let the police take the remains to the lab for testing (reminds you of the Gaitonde scene at the end of the first movie, doesn’t it?).

Thus, with all the law enforcement fooled again, Vijay Salgaonkar goes ahead with life, once again a free man, and once again successful in protecting his family.

Given how Drishyam 3 is literally titled The Conclusion, don’t expect Ajay Devgn to return to the role again. That said, the original Malayalam movie starring Mohanlal will go on to have a fourth instalment. It would help to know that the story ends very differently in the two movies, as in the Mohanlal-led Drishyam 3 and the Ajay Devgn-led Drishyam: The Conclusion.

Then again, who knows, if Drishyam 4 is a hit, maybe Vijay Salgaonkar will be back as well?