Aahana Swrup
‘The Buckingham Murders’ is an Indian crime thriller film with an emotionally poignant murder mystery at its center. The case involves Detective Jasmeet “Jass” Bhamra, a grieving mother who transfers to the town of High Wycombe in the aftermath of her son’s death. Right off the bat, Jasmeet gets assigned to the case of the missing young boy, Ishpreet Kohli, whose dead body is discovered soon after. As such, Jasmeet and her superior officer, Hardik “Hardy” Patel, commence with the investigation into the tragic murder. However, the further Jasmeet goes down the rabbit hole, the more she realizes the case isn’t as straightforward as it appears.
The film lays down clues throughout the narrative for the characters—and the audience alike—creating a compelling mystery. As a result, the intrigue around Ishpreet’s case grows as Jasmeet and her team needle the case, which is full of bait-and-switches, red herrings, and a surprising conclusion. SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Buckingham Murders Plot Synopsis
Jasmeet Bhamra loses her son in an unambiguous, heart-shattering incident after James Thomas, a drug addict, opens fire in a crowded area. The court trial that follows is complicated and finds the killer guilty on all charges. Still, even after the aftermath of the kid’s death is wrapped up, it leaves the mother disoriented, unbalanced, and full of rage. Consequently, she decides to initiate a transfer, arriving at High Wycombe as a Detective Inspector. However, despite having taken the job to avoid any reminders of her past, Jasmeet is assigned a case that hits close to home on her first day.
The case revolves around Ishpreet Kohli, an Indian kid who had recently gone missing. As such, despite her reservations, she has no choice but to arrive at the Kohli household, where she assists Hardy, the primary on the case. Initially, the superior officer ignores and dismisses her instincts on the case and decides to deploy a search party at the park. Even though nothing turns up in the overnight search, Hardy eventually finds Ishpreet’s dead body stashed away in a hidden car in the park. Therefore, the case turns from a missing person instance to a murder investigation. Jasmeet’s instinct is to question the boy’s family after learning tidbits of suspicious behavior from them.
On the other hand, Hardy looks into the car Ishpreet was found in and traces it back to Akram Khan, who confesses that his nephew, Saqib Chaudhary, last borrowed his car. Upon further investigation, they see footage of Saqib and his friend, Naved, driving to the park together. Soon enough, the police have the teenager in custody as the prime suspect in the case. It helps that of the two DNAs found on Ishpreet’s dead body, one belongs to Saqib. As Jasmeet looks into the connection between the two boys, she learns about a feud between their fathers, who were once business partners.
Naturally, Ishpreet’s father, Daljeet, insists Saqib must have wanted to “avenge his father” with the former’s death. The angle is further supported once they bring Naved in for questioning, who confesses to a whole tale about Saqib killing Ishpreet in a fit of rage. However, he also reveals a yet undisclosed detail about Ishpreet delivering cocaine. Therefore, while Hardy declares the case as solved, pinning Saqib as the murderer, Jasmeet remains suspicious of the entire thing. Inevitably, this leads to an altercation between the two detectives, where Jasmeet ends up punching Hardy when he brings up her son’s death. As a result, she’s punished with desk duty while the department wraps the case up with Saqib as the accused.
This leads to growing hateful sentiments between the town’s Muslim and Sikh communities. Worse yet, Jasmeet can’t shake off the feeling that they’ve incriminated the wrong guy in the case. Inevitably, she starts working the case again on the down low, discovering a connection between Hardy and the Kohli-Chaudhary family. The same compels her to take her suspicions to Superintendent Miller. Although he’s initially reluctant to agree with her, he eventually gives in and pulls some strings to allow Jasmeet one covert conversation with Saqib from the prison.
The Buckingham Murders Ending: Was Saqib Framed For Ishpreet’s Murder? Who Framed Him?
From the start, Jasmeet remains suspicious of the route the police investigation seems to be taking in Ishpreet’s case. She often questions Hardy’s strategies and often tries to pay attention to details that others overlook. Therefore, the detective predictably arrives at odds with the superior officer once he readily closes up the case with Saqib as the accused. Hardy’s actions become more understandable once she looks into the kid’s past. As it turns out, the town had a dark history of drug dealing when Syringe—Daljeet’s close family friend—used to sell drugs for a living. During this time, one of his customers, Shalini Patel, a teenager, ended up overdosing and entering a coma.
Interestingly enough, this Shalinin Patel is Hardy’s sister. For the same reason, the detective holds a grudge against Syringe. However, he wasn’t the only one responsible for Shalini’s fate. Syringe’s network worked through some kids who operated as mules for him. Saqib was one of these kids. Yet, given his age and drug addiction, the authorities never prosecuted the boy for Shalini’s case. As such, Jasmeet realizes the detective could very well have a vendetta against Saqib. Even though Miller had known all about this, he still allowed Hardy to continue with the case with Saqib as his primary suspect.
Nevertheless, Miller makes up for past mistakes by setting up a meeting between Jasmeet and Saqib in the dead of the night. Initially, the teenager is reluctant to talk to the detective. Yet, he eventually opens up to her, finally revealing the truth. While it is true that on the day of Ishpreet’s death, the boy came to Saqib and Naved to deliver a packet of cocaine to them, the older boy only roughed him up without actually killing him. In fact, Saqib was worried about Ishpreet’s involvement in running drugs and had threatened to rat him out to his father if he didn’t stop.
Consequently, Saqib’s account confirms that he had nothing to do with Ishpreet’s death. Yet, the boy was previously reluctant to talk to the cops because he’s harboring a huge secret. As it turns out, Saqib and Naved are lovers who meandered to the park to be together away from prying eyes. Hours after their interaction with Ishpreet, the boys came across his dead body together. Even though Saqib wanted to help the boy and take him to the hospital, Naved bolted from the scene, unwilling to have his presence at the park revealed. For the same reason, the pair lied about the day’s events. However, Jasmeet realizes Naved must have been coerced into his testimony to have incriminated his boyfriend for the murder.
Although Naved declines the same upon confrontation, Jasmeet keeps an eye on the boy. Thus, she witnesses Hardy and his partner, Simon, picking up the teenager from his house and driving him to the park. Apparently, Hardy had promised a short sentence for Saqib to get Naved to pin the murder on him. As such, now that he knows the other boy is in for a life sentence, he threatens to reveal the truth to the authorities. This compels Hardy to pull a knife on Naved. Yet, before anything can happen, Jasmeet emerges from the woods with the police squad. Once surrounded, Hardy realizes he has nowhere left to run. As a result, in a desperate ploy, he commits suicide in the forest, unable to live with the consequences of his vengeful actions.
Is Daljeet Having an Affair? Did He Kill Ishpreet?
After Hardy’s death, Jasmeet becomes the Investigative officer on Ishpreet’s newly re-opened case. Therefore, she finally gets to drive the investigation’s focus toward the details she has been stuck on since the beginning. First off, Ishpreet’s school bag is still missing, which raises the question of the connection between his death and his apparent involvement with drug deliveries. Alternatively, according to his friend, Florence, the boy was also in a sour mood near his death due to something that happened during his piano lessons. The latter mystery begins to resolve itself once Jasmeet’s partner, Sharon, tails Daljeet and discovers that he might be having an affair with his kid’s former piano teacher, Indrani.
Thus, all clues point toward Daljeet, compelling Jasmeet to look into the man. From domestic violence against his wife, Preeti, to Ishpreet’s life insurance claims, several incriminating evidence arose against him. Still, Jasmeet is in for a surprise when a new development arrives at the Kohli household. One night, after the husband returns home from spending the day with Indrani, he finds Prithvi, Syringe’s brother, making a move on Preeti. As a result, Daljeet chases the younger man around the house in his anger and ends up killing him by bashing his skull in with a kitchen pan.
Yet, although Daljeet has no choice but to confess to Prithvi’s murder, he insists on his innocence in Ishpreet’s case. Likewise, once Jasmeet brings Indrani in for questioning, the woman maintains her cool and denies any involvement in the kid’s murder. Furthermore, she also denies having an affair with Daljeet, claiming they’re simply part of the same support group for people who lost loved ones in the pandemic. Nonetheless, Jasmeet doesn’t buy into the tale, connecting Ishpreet’s foul mood after his lessons to his father’s alleged infidelity. In the end, while Jasmeet may have been right about their affair, she is proven wrong once the lab results arrive, confirming the second DNA found on Ishpreet’s body.
Who Killed Ishpreet? Why?
After the discovery of Ishpreet’s dead body, forensics found two DNAs at the crime scene. While one was easily identified as Saqib, it took some time to determine the other. Yet, once the identification comes in, it changes the way Jasmeet has been looking at the case this entire time. The other DNA belongs to Prithvi, Syringe’s younger brother and an apparent close friend to the Kohlis. With the discovery, the authorities search Prithvi’s house and find Ishpreet’s school bag hidden away. As such, a different truth emerges.
Although Syringe stopped dealing drugs after his time in prison due to his guilt over Shalini’s predicament, Prithvi took up the business in secret. Consequently, he forced Ishpreet into delivering the drugs to Naved and lured the kid out to the park. Afterward, he killed the kid, drowning him in the lake with his bare hands. In the aftermath, Hardy complicated the instance by finding Ishpreet’s body before anyone else and stashing it in Saqib’s car. However, it had been Prithvi who was responsible for Ishpreet’s death all along. Worse yet, once Jasmeet finds his second phone in his belongings, she realizes that Prithvi had an accomplice: Preeti. Ultimately, the reveal arrives that Prithvi had killed Ishpreet at the behest of the kid’s mother, Preeti.
Why Did Preeti Plan Ishpreet’s Murder?
The reveal of Preeti’s involvement in Ishpreet’s murder abruptly shakes up the narrative, bringing the case’s conclusion to an unexpected place. Throughout the story, Pretti has been playing the perfect part of the weeping mother. In a way, she mirrored Jasmeet’s predicament, inciting natural empathy for herself from other characters and the viewers. On top of losing her son, Preeti also seems to be dealing with an abusive, cheating husband and the unwanted advances of a family friend. Nonetheless, all of this comes crumbling down as the police bring the woman into custody moments before she can board a plane out of the country.
Once faced with an astounded Jasmeet, Preeti’s reality emerges. As it turns out, Preeti has never liked Ishpreet. She despised her marriage with Daljeet since the man consistently mistreated her and made her into his household maid more than his wife. For the same reason, she never even wanted to raise a kid with him. Yet, Daljeet and his mother wanted a kid and adopted Ishpreet from India. Eventually, the grandmother died during the pandemic, leaving Preeti to look after the kid. However, the mother simply wanted to get rid of the kid to punish Daljeet and receive the former’s life insurance money.
For the same reason, Preeti manipulated Prithvi into carrying out the murder for her. After Syringe was imprisoned for his drug dealing charges, the Kohlis took his younger brother in. During this time, the young boy grew enamored with Preeti, who encouraged his advances. Thus, she groomed him to rely emotionally upon her. Consequently, when the time came, she was able to use him to bring her murderous plans to fruition. Eventually, she got lucky when Daljeet walked in on them and killed Prithvi. Yet, she got caught in the eleventh hour.
Although Preeti’s arrest wraps up Ishpreet’s murder case, it unbalances Jasmeet further. As a mother who lost her son to needless violence, she can’t understand Preeti’s capacity to hurt her own child. Even though the other woman lived a bleak life of abuse and neglect, she perpetuated plenty of hurt of her own. Worse yet, her victims were Prithvi and Ishpreet, two innocent kids who got caught up in Preeti’s misplaced vengeance.
