Dabba Cartel: Who planted the drugs in their workspace?

The figure with the most direct access and confirmed motive is Santosh (Prateik Pachori), a drug dealer who is also Mala’s (Nimisha Sajayan) boyfriend. The Rediff.com review of the series confirms that Mala is drawn in by her boyfriend’s blackmail tactics; Wikipedia’s cast table identifies that boyfriend as Santosh. That combination gives him both the leverage and the physical access to introduce contraband into a space she co-controls. Above him in the criminal hierarchy sits Chacko Kurian (Sunil Grover), a drug lord who is the structural force coercing all five women into letting their tiffin service work as a distribution cover. The parallel pharmaceutical investigation, targeting Shankar Dasgupta (Jisshu Sengupta) and his company VivaLife, completes the web through which the women’s workspace is drawn in.

Santosh’s leverage over Mala

The Rediff.com review of the series identifies the mechanism as blackmail, not persuasion. Santosh, confirmed in the series’ official credits as a drug dealer and as Mala’s boyfriend, is the person who applied it. Blackmail removes the exit in a way persuasion cannot. His role as the criminal with the closest personal access to one of the two women running Raji’s Kitchen places him at the top of the suspect list for the workspace incident.

His approach to drawing Mala into using the tiffin business for drug distribution, before escalating to coercion when she resisted, is consistent with the confirmed character description. He is someone who identified the operation, applied personal pressure, and escalated when simple persuasion did not work.

The criminal network above Santosh

Santosh is not at the top of the chain. The Rediff.com review states that the five women are “strong-armed by a gangster” into using their dabba platform for drug dealing. Chacko Kurian, played by Sunil Grover in a special appearance role, is credited as that drug lord. The hierarchy described in the Rediff.com review suggests that any deliberate placement would trace back to Kurian, although no specific scene confirms that direction.

Santosh’s blackmail of Mala is one pressure point within a broader operation. He operates under a criminal structure that has its own interests in the tiffin service as a distribution channel.

The VivaLife pharmaceutical investigation

VivaLife Pharmaceutical, under Shankar Dasgupta’s leadership, is under investigation for the illegal distribution of banned painkillers. The official production summary from Excel Entertainment states that a fatal accident exposes an illegal opioid connected to the company. FDSCO inspector Ajit Pathak (Gajraj Rao) leads the inquiry. SI Preeti (Sai Tamhankar) works alongside him as his partner.

The connection to the women’s workspace runs through Raji Jagtap (Shalini Pandey). The Excel Entertainment production summary places the tiffin service inside VivaLife’s residential colony, putting Raji’s operation in direct proximity to the company under investigation. Her husband Hari (Bhupendra Jadawat) is confirmed in the series credits. Shankar himself, according to the Rediff review, is focused on “shielding his company’s fraud from the media” rather than cooperating with the investigation.

Varuna Dasgupta’s position

Varuna Dasgupta (Jyothika) sits at the junction of multiple criminal threads. She is Shankar’s wife, which places her inside the VivaLife world. She is also Mala’s former employer, which means she has a prior working relationship with one half of the tiffin partnership. The Rediff review notes that her boutique is losing money and her marriage is strained. Financial pressure, proximity to her husband’s pharmaceutical fraud, and direct knowledge of Mala’s circumstances combine to give her both motive and access. Whether any of that translates into an active role in the workspace incident is not established.

Tejaswi Tijori and the institutional connection

One more character bridges the domestic and corporate worlds: Tejaswi Tijori (Sushmita Mukherjee), credited in the official cast as “Vivalife Society President.” That title places her within Shankar Dasgupta’s corporate orbit, a connection more specific than her social attitudes toward domestic workers would suggest. Her active role, if any, in the workspace incident is not established.

What the evidence points to

The confirmed character structure points toward layered coercion rather than a single planted trap. Santosh exerts the most direct personal pressure on Mala. Chacko Kurian provides the criminal authority that draws all five women in. VivaLife’s illegal painkiller operation, through Shankar Dasgupta, supplies the institutional backdrop, and the tiffin service’s placement inside VivaLife’s residential colony, per the Excel Entertainment production summary, closes that loop around Raji before the investigation reaches her kitchen.

What that structure means is that the women were not standing outside a criminal world when drugs appeared in their space. Each was connected to that world through at least one personal relationship before the tiffin service existed. Mala through Santosh and through Varuna. Raji through Hari and through Varuna. Sheila “Ba” Jagtap (Shabana Azmi) through her son. When SI Preeti’s investigation reaches the workspace, it does not find an accidental first contact with crime. It finds the convergence of ties the women have been carrying without fully understanding them.