Plot
Athreya wakes up in the middle of the night and learns about his mother Mahalakshmi's death, where he leaves for home to Nellore from his college in Bhopal, only to learn Mahalakshmi has already been cremated by his maternal uncle. 3 years later, Athreya is a detective in Nellore under the name of Agent Sai Srinivas Athreya, where he sets up an agency named FBI (Fatima Bureau of Investigation). His assistant Sneha who, earlier was his junior in college, helps him in cases. Athreya is mostly involved in solving petty cases. One day, his writer friend Sirish informs him of an unidentified body in Venkatachalam. When Athreya goes there, an arrogant CI Gautham Krishna arrests him on suspicion of murder.
In prison that night, Athreya meets a man who introduces himself as Maruthi Rao and tells him of his daughter Divya, who went missing after going to Ongole. He gives him 3 phone numbers of three different people who were the last who had contacted Divya before she was supposedly murdered: Ajay, Harsha, and Vasudha. Athreya and Sneha, upon investigation based on the phone numbers, confirm that Ajay and Harsha were in Ongole the day Divya was murdered, while Vasudha cannot be traced. They follow them both all day, who go to a car rental agency, mortuary, and railroad. At the end of the day, Athreya recognizes Divya along a highway, who doesn't speak Telugu, ignoring him. Upon checking at the police station in Nellore, they find that no Maruthi Rao was transferred from the rural station in the last three days.
Upon checking at the rural station, they find that the person who had called himself Maruthi Rao is actually Gopalam. Further inquiry with the station in Ongole reveals that the body found was male not female. Later, at a Dhaba, Athreya discovers Ajay brutally murdered and he is promptly arrested as the prime suspect by the Sub-Inspector Vamsi. Cops find drugs in his Office and start investigation officially. Upon further investigation of Sneha and Sirish, they find that Harsha was also brutally murdered leaving evidence of Athreya. Athreya realises that Maruthi Rao's information is a trap to frame him in the murder case which is related to the unidentified body found in Venkatachalam.
Athreya gets out on bail due to CCTV footage evidence that he was in Nellore sub-Jail asking for Maruthi Rao, but he only has five more days to prove his innocence due to the overwhelming evidence against him. While Athreya and Sneha investigate for clues at Harsha's house, someone tries to kill Athreya. He explains his theory to Vamsi who is observing his investigation from the beginning, and it is discovered that Ajay and Harsha wanted the details of Athreya after he saw him being arrested in Venkatachalam. Meanwhile, a father registers a complaint about his missing daughter, and the missing daughter is Vasudha who turns out to be dead. A frustrated Athreya shows his anguish on Gautham by addressing his carelessness, where Gautham decides to cancel Athreya's bail to present him in the court soon.
Later, Athreya catches a man nicknamed "Bobby" who has been following Athreya around, however, Bobby reveals himself as Agent Bala Venkata Subramanya Swamy like him who runs FBI (Friends Bureau of Investigation) in Hassan, Karnataka. Swamy was fed with false information that Athreya is the real murderer. Athreya figures out that there is a huge conspiracy, and sees that various bodies have been dumped next to the railway track between Kakinada and Tada railway stations. Athreya discovers that, per Railway rules, when no one claims the dead body in 72 hours, the dead bodies are cremated by the Railway Authorities. He deduces that the bodies are being loaded on a Chennai-to-Delhi goods train. Using this information, Athreya sees that the bodies are loaded at Arambakkam in Tamil Nadu.
With the help of Vamsi, Bobby, and Sneha, he goes to Arambakkam after faking his death to mislead the people following him. In Arambakkam, he catches Gopalam a former stage artist, who reveals the whole plot: someone has been taking dead bodies from Hindu families on the pretext that they are taking the bodies to Kashi, a holy place to cremate the dead, for money, and then dump them next to railroads. He also finds out that Mahalakshmi's corpse has been dumped like this too since his uncle sent Mahalakshmi's body for Kashi. After an emotional breakdown, Athreya finds out that the fingerprints of the dead man in Venkatachalam match with those of a murderer in Gujarat, and deduces that they are stealing the fingerprints of dead bodies as well to use them in crimes. Athreya and Bobby find that the people behind this wanted to set them up so that they wouldn't find the Bethaballi Amman's (a religious NGO) talismans on the dead bodies that were supposed to be removed before the bodies are disposed.
Meanwhile, Sneha and Vamsi find that Ajay, Harsha, and Vasudha collaborated on a college project about religious crimes in India and collect the material along with their photos. Looking at the photos, Athreya realises that the dead body of Vasudha had a tattoo from childhood, while Vasudha in a picture does not. Then Athreya reveals that Vasudha and her father are running the whole operation. Being criminology graduates Ajay, and Harsha were investigating the unidentified dead bodies. They started their investigation in Ongole and reached Nellore where they found the Talisman on the dead body and at the same time Athreya came across the body to investigate and got arrested, where Ajay and Harsha wanted to approach Athreya for taking his service, but were too late.
Vasudha wanted to kill Ajay and Harsha and set up Athreya in a narcotics case so that nobody could trace the dead body to her, but her plan failed when Athreya proved himself innocent in court by showing the CCTV footage in prison and received bail. Vasudha comes with a new plan of killing Athreya and setting up Bobby to divert the cops. Her father lodges a false complaint and later declares she was missing and found dead like the unidentified bodies. After going to Bethaballi Amman NGO's office to find it empty, Athreya deduces that Vasudha went to Rajasthan to set up their new hideout in Karni Mata Temple where the team catches her and her father and hands them over to the Nellore police. Athreya bids his goodbye to Bobby and he along with Sneha, visits the crematorium to pay their respects to Mahalakshmi. Finally, Athreya continues his petty cases and logs heads with local police again which hints towards a sequel.
