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Black Squad – Episode 88
Title: "The Puppeteer's Room"
(An artist of illusion. A death behind closed doors. When a famous ventriloquist is found dead in a locked room, the Black Squad enters a world of obsession, childhood trauma, and deadly manipulation — where every voice might be a lie.)
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[OPENING SCENE – APARTMENT, VERSOVA, MUMBAI | 9:15 PM]
Soft music plays in the background.
The camera pans across a dimly lit room filled with puppets on shelves — all lifelike, staring.
At the center of the room: Sameer Malik, 42, a famous ventriloquist, sits motionless in his chair, his puppet "Milo" on his lap.
The puppet's hand is soaked in blood.
Sameer's throat is slit — no signs of a struggle.
The door is locked from inside. Windows barred.
Title card: Episode 88 – The Puppeteer's Room
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ACT 1: Scene of the Crime
Black Squad arrives.
Imran and Reet examine the room.
Zoya inspects the body.
Arjun checks the locks — everything is secured from inside. No way out.
Reet finds a strange detail: Sameer's phone is missing.
The only fingerprints on the murder weapon (a sharp, steel wire used for carving puppets) are Sameer's.
Zoya finds a note tucked behind a curtain:
> "The show must go on. Even without me."
Imran frowns:
> "Suicide? But why place the puppet's hand in blood?"
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ACT 2: Unmasking the Victim
Sameer Malik had:
A massive social media following.
A troubled history: orphaned young, raised in group homes, treated for dissociative identity disorder (DID) in his teens.
Recently canceled a national tour with no reason.
They talk to his former manager, Aarti Mehra. She says Sameer was paranoid for weeks:
> "He kept saying Milo was talking to him on his own. That something wasn't right."
Zoya finds an old clip of Sameer rehearsing alone. He whispers:
> "If I die... it won't be by my hand."
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ACT 3: The Other Voice
Reet restores a deleted folder from Sameer's backup cloud. It contains audio logs.
One of them — chilling:
> Voice 1 (Sameer): "Milo, please… stop it."
Voice 2 (distorted): "You made me. You can't unmake me."
The voice modulation tech used is advanced.
Arjun suspects psychological manipulation.
They dig into Sameer's personal life — and discover he recently reconnected with his estranged half-brother, Rahul Sinha, a failed theater actor.
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ACT 4: Who Pulled the Strings?
Imran and Reet locate Rahul's flat. It's been abandoned for days — but inside, they find:
A replica of Milo, Sameer's puppet.
An audio setup capable of mimicking voices.
A diary with pages saying:
> "He stole my stage. Now he'll give his last act to me."
Turns out Rahul had discovered Sameer's DID condition and planned a revenge — gaslighting Sameer into thinking Milo was alive.
They confirm: Rahul used vent ducts to enter and leave Sameer's studio unnoticed.
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ACT 5: Final Confrontation
Arjun and Zoya track Rahul to an old, shut-down children's theatre in Dadar — where Sameer first performed.
Inside: Rahul is doing a mock performance, holding the Milo replica.
> "He got all the fame. I got silence. So I gave him voices."
A short but brutal fight. Zoya disarms him. Arjun pins him down.
Rahul screams as he's taken away:
> "The puppet didn't kill him. His mind did."
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ENDING SCENE – BLACK SQUAD HQ
Reet packs up the files. Zoya looks at the puppet on the evidence table.
Qazi enters:
> "Sometimes, the most dangerous voices… are the ones inside us."
Fade to black.