Mardaani 3

Story:

The 2026 Indian Hindi-language action movie Mardaani 3 (also known as Manly 3) was produced by Aditya Chopra under Yash Raj Films and directed by Abhiraj Minawala. Starring Rani Mukerji, Janki Bodiwala, and Mallika Prasad, it is the third part of the Mardaani Trilogy and a follow-up to the 2019 film Mardaani 2. In barely three months, 93 young girls have vanished under strange circumstances. The story follows police inspector Shivani Shivaji Roy as she looks into this case.

When Mardaani 3 debuted in theaters on January 30, 2026, reviewers gave it mixed to positive reviews. While playing hide-and-seek with Jhimli, a domestic helper’s daughter, Ruhani, the daughter of Indian diplomat Sahu, is kidnapped in Bulandshahr. Jhimli is also kidnapped as she tries to stop it. SSP Shivani Shivaji Roy, meanwhile, breaks up a drug and woman trafficking network in the Sundarbans. Sahu, impressed by Shivani’s work, announces a public ransom of ₹2 crore and suggests that Shivani head the probe into Ruhani’s disappearance.

After giving the girls to Amma, the influential head of a beggar mafia network, the kidnappers subsequently take Ruhani back and demand the payment directly. The thieves use a taped video call to trick the authorities, even though Shivani is in charge of the exchange. After being apprehended, one gang member discloses connections to Amma’s group. Shivani believes Ruhani was kidnapped after being mistaken for a poor child after learning that 93 girls from low-income households, ages eight to nine, have vanished in three months.

Following leads, the police find two of Amma’s enforcers at Treta Trust, a rehabilitation center headed by Ramanujan, who says it fights beggar mafias. While trying to kill him, the enforcers are murdered in a confrontation. Soon later, Amma breaks into Shivani’s house to scare her. After the kidnappers are murdered in a gunfight following a raid on Prince Lodge, Ramanujan is dispatched to save Ruhani. Instead, he kills her, exposing himself as a police mole who works for Amma. Shivani promises to save Jhimli after Amma threatens her.

Senior officials remove Shivani from the case, but she keeps up her unauthorized investigation. After learning that other girls were almost burned alive, she discovers one missing girl in a hospital who has advanced cervical cancer and is near death. Shivani discovers Ramanujan’s history as a youngster kidnapped by Amma and brought up in her network by connecting a sign in the girl’s drawings to Treta Trust. Shivani detains Ramanujan and Amma, but Ramanujan is freed, Shivani is suspended, and a crucial witness passes away while in detention because there is insufficient proof and Ramanujan manipulates the situation. Ramanujan, Amma, and accomplice Fatima escape to Colombo.

With Sahu’s help, Shivani assembles a separate team and chases them abroad. It becomes out that the girls were kidnapped in order to use them as test subjects in illicit research with a modified HPV virus meant to speed up treatment trials for cervical cancer. Ruhani’s murder can be explained by the killing of girls deemed undesirable in order to evade detection. After capturing Amma, Shivani confronts Ramanujan in Colombo and reveals that Fatima was set up as an informant. Ramanujan’s plan is foiled and Amma is slain during an effort at escape. Shivani makes sure the girls who were saved are sent back home.

Ramanujan is left to slowly perish in captivity when Shivani injects him with the same virus that was used on the victims. She receives the President’s Medal, is given head of a special task force with operational autonomy, and is reinstated into the police force. Sahu achieves closure, and Jhimli is reunited with her father.