Widowed Sulakshana Devi (Raakhee) has three children: two sons, Arjun (Kanwaljit Singh) and Karan, and a daughter, Suman (Shehnaz Kudia). They live in a rented house and the landlord behaves badly with Sulakshana Devi and robs all her money. Karan decides to rob the landlord, but gets caught and is sent to the children's remand home. Sulakshana Devi decides to visit Karan before they leave for Mumbai, but realises that he ran away from the remand home. Karan also makes his way to Mumbai, where he is picked up by a garage owner.

During a road-side fight, grown up Karan (Anil Kapoor) is caught by police and is offered to work for Devraj Kamat (Anupam Kher), a criminal mastermind. Karan refuses the offer, but Kamat informs his rival Rattan Dholakia (Paresh Rawal). Rattan frames Karan for a murder of a police officer, but is freed by Kamat when he agrees to work with him. Karan tries to meet his family through Arjun (Kanwaljit Singh) and Suman (Shehnaz Kudia), but Sulakshana Devi refuses to accept him. Various incidents lead Karan to meet and fall in love with Madhu (Madhuri Dixit) and he decides to leave the underworld. However, Kamat and Dholakia join hands to destroy Karan as he was a critical part of their underworld operations.