Plot

A young Bhavani watches as his family is burnt to death by his father's rivals. He is then forced into captivity in a juvenile prison by them and intentionally tortured by their order, Bhavani eventually escapes and convinces the man who killed his father to spare him in exchange for a weekly tribute for sparing his life. He then makes his way up racketeering by exhorting money from truckers along with other crimes. He keeps from trouble by forcing children from the juvenile home to take blame for his criminal activities. He eventually takes revenge on the men who murdered his family, maiming them to death.

In Chennai, John "JD" Durairaj is an alcoholic college professor whose popularity and support for students' interests often gets him in trouble with the college authority. As his relationship with other professors deteriorate, unbeknownst to him, he is signed up as the new teacher to the juvenile center controlled by Bhavani. Despite his initial protest, he decides to go with it anyway and doesn't take his new job seriously. On his second day, he is shocked to see two of the center's children hanging to death in the hall. They were both murdered by Bhavani for declining to falsely surrender on a murder case attempting to contact JD. JD is taken to the local police station for enquiry, where he learns from Charulatha Prasad, a junior professor from his college, of what is going on in the juvenile center. JD also comes to know that Charu is an NGO volunteer who had to take up teaching to support a case relating to the juvenile home financially and she was the one who had forged his signature to sign up for teaching in the juvenile home since he was the only one capable of understanding the students' interests and reforming them. He is heartbroken when he finds out a letter in his pocket from the two children telling him of their situation and pleading for his help, Bhavani's men eventually arrive at the police station and attempt to exile JD from the town, JD beats them up and warns Bhavani that he will avenge the two children.

JD reforms himself, dumping all his alcohol and gets a make-over. He learns about what goes on in the juvenile center from its workers, with their support as well as help from his students and Charu, he begins to attempt reforming the center. Soon love blossoms between Charu and JD, while she also learns that JD is an orphan whose traumatic past made caused him to turn to alcoholism and his subsequent partialism towards students. He makes a failed attempt to submit evidence of what goes on in the center to a local magistrate by collecting confessions from the children, but Bhavani's men intercept and destroy the confession clips. JD learns Bhavani's organisation uses a handmark to identify their men and goes around town beating up Bhavani's businesses and men with the same handmark, He also sneaks into Bhavani's place and warns Bhavani's men while unknowingly holding Bhavani himself in knifepoint. The next day, Bhavani retaliates, killing one of JD's friend, leaving JD to break down in pain and swear vengeance. While he is away from the center, Bhavani's men and Das drag the students into a container and take them away, leaving only a few of his own men behind, JD confronts Das and his men and make them realize their wrongdoings and learns that the children are being trafficked across the border from them. He successfully intercepts and saves the children, and also manages to convince Das that Bhavani sees Das as a mere liability and will kill him when he realises he lost the children, He is sneaked into Bhavani's meat factory by Das and finally batters and kills Bhavani, avenging his friends' and the children's deaths and securing the other children's safety. The juvenile home is shut down by the government and JD, along with a reformed Das and his men are sent to prison for their vigilantism.