I am a Kaira fan and watch the show mainly for them. I just started watching from August, and did give Keesh a chance, however, after a while I just couldn't watch their scenes because of the lack of proper story line they were given and the robotic acting.
Having said that, despite of my biasness towards Kaira, I still cannot bring myself to support him in this track. I firmly believe he deserved all the thrashing he got in Friday's and yesterday's episode. I would have understood and maybe supported him a bit had he told Keesh a day after Keerti had woken up, instead of waiting for 11 days. At that point, it seemed like had Keesh not found out, he would have never given the baby back, which is equivalent to stealing.
Coming to your point about other male characters being worse than Kartik, I don't think that's a strong argument considering those heroes are introduced as anti--heros and then miraculously they have a change of heart. Their bad-boy nature is what attracts the audience to them. Also, correct me if I am wrong, but aren't Gul shows mainly watched and appreciated by the younger audience rather than the trp audience?
Kartik, on the other hand, was always shown as this near to perfect guy. He has weakness, like his anger, compulsiveness, however, hes not evil like other male leads. This track literally portrayed him as a criminal, which was completely out of character for him.
Despite of knowing all this, I still have a soft spot for Kartik, because of Mohsin's acting. You just can't hate him. I still feel sorry for everything he went through.
I will give you an example. My mother watches almost all shows on star plus. My mother and sister were watching the show and asking me about it during the hospital week, however, the next week after the baby swap, they were like we can't bear to look at this show. Even the trp dropped that week. Not saying my family's opinion can be used to generalize the public's opinion, but they watch the show from a neutral pov unlike us fans. Similarly, right now she's liking Anurag's character and she say's how nice he is, which is the opinion the public had for Kartik before he swapped the babies.
At this point, I am really curious to know how Kartik's character is redeemed by the cvs, because the despite everything, he did wrong everyone in the family and commit a crime.