A badly injured Anbuchelvan (played by Suriya) is lying on the bank of a stream, thinking about his wife Maya and how he needs to rescue her. The story moves quickly from this opening scene to a flashback of Anbuchelvan’s time as a young policeman.

Anbuchelvan and his friends, Shrikanth, Arul and Illamaran, have been recruited for part of a special unit of police officers who are battling organized crime in Chennai. Violent and laconic, Anbuchelvan finds little patience for a personal life. The unit is ruthless in its confrontation with criminals, going as far as assassinating gang members; the unit is finally disbanded by senior authorities. Anbuchelvan is posted to traffic duties.

One day a schoolteacher named Maya (played by Jyothika) rebuffs Anbuchelvan's routine questions regarding safety, not knowing that he is a police officer. He meets her again when she and her friend are questioned for driving without a license. However, Anbuchelvan lets them off with a warning. When one of Maya’s students has a problem with local kids, she asks Anbuchelvan for help. Anbuchelvan resolves this problem, a mutual respect grows between them and they begin seeing one another. When Maya gets into a road accident, Anbuchelvan helps her to recover and they fall in love. Shrikanth and his wife, Swathi, become good friends with Anbuchelvan and Maya.

In response to rising levels of crime in the city, when the son of an influential movie producer is kidnapped and killed, the special unit is reassembled. The unit tracks down and kills the head of the gang that was responsible. The brother of the gang leader, Pandya (played by Jeevan), returns from Mumbai and takes over the gang, promising revenge over his brother’s death. Pandya and his gang members target the families of the men in the special unit, but the police close in and a badly injured Pandya barely escapes Anbuchelvan.

Maya and Anbuchelvan get married and leave for Pondicherry. But the next day, Pandya and his thugs enter the cottage the honeymoon couple are staying in and torture Anbuchhelvan, leaving him for dead. They kidnap Maya. This brings the viewer back to the opening scene of the movie, in which Anbuchelvan is battling for life but thinking only about rescuing Maya.

Shrikanth and Arul arrive at the cottage, discover Anbuchelvan and take him to the hospital. Shrikanth reveals that his wife Swathi was kidnapped earlier and confesses that it was he who gave away Anbuchelvan’s location to Pandya, for the safe return of Swathi. Shrikanth feels extreme remorse over what has happened. Whilst in the hospital, they receive a message from Pandya to meet him at a particular location. When they go there, they find a package containing the severed head of Swathi. Shrikanth is distraught at seeing his wife's head and in an agony of grief and guilt at being responsible, he commits suicide by shooting himself. Anbuchelvan tracks down Pandya before he can escape from Tamil Nadu and fights with the gang. Pandya stabs Maya to distract her husband and she dies in Anbuchelvan’s arms. An enraged Anbuchelvan tracks down Pandya and, in a final encounter, kills him.

An epilogue shows that Anbuchelvan, after the death of Maya, continues his job as an IPS officer some weeks later. An alternative ending was shot and placed in the DVD version with a running commentary by Gautham Menon, in which Maya comes alive and he explains why this ending was not used in the version for cinema release.

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