16 December 2012
Nirbhay se ladhi Nirbhaya
On the night of 16 December 2012 near Munirka Chownk in the capital of India, a brutal act beyond the extremities of humankind took place, which absolutely left the whole nation in shivers and shock. An inhumane act of raping of a 23-year-old paramedic student by six men, ripping her insides to numeral pieces and tearing her soul into two halves. A satanic act of brutality, violence, and assault to a young couple traveling back home after a movie at 9 p.m. One of those moments of our time on earth, where we begin to question our own existence and whether being born as a human is actually a boon or a curse.
Based on this disturbing and the most heinous crime committed in the capital of the country, Netflix came out with an original seven-episode Hindi television series on 22 March 2019. The series called Delhi Crime is an utterly honest, gut-wrenching, and heart pining account of the victims’ lives after the attack, victims families and the public outrage thereafter. Specifically portraying the perspective of Delhi Police on the chain of events that took place during the investigation to nab the criminals, it highlights the side of the story that the masses have little or no idea about. Directed by Richie Mehta starring Shefali Shah as Vartika Chaturvedi, the DCP South Delhi leading the investigation team, the show is thought-provoking and heart aching.
The show opens up with Shefali Shah narrating in the background, the number of crimes that are reported every year in Delhi, why the police force cannot prevent it as it’s busy in traffic duties and in the protection of the VIP’s and Delhi has to turn it’s facing away from every crime, hoping for a better road ahead. But the crime of 16 December turned the eyes of the whole Nation towards Delhi for a moment and left everybody scarred. It was 10:38 p.m. when a police PCR approached a crowd on the side of the road and found two naked and atrociously beaten persons lying on the road in Munirka. The couple was taken to Safdarjung hospital immediately for treatment and a case was filed against six men.
The young couple was traveling back home after a movie show when six other men in the bus beat the boy and raped the girl several times in the backside of the moving bus. But the brutality and insanity did not stop at raping the girl, one of the men inserted an iron rod inside her several times, damaging her intestines beyond repair. But when the girl still survived all this inhumanity and was alive, those barbaric men pulled out her intestines with their bare hands, stripped both of them off their clothes and threw them out on the road to drive the bus over them and kill them.
The police, however, does a tremendous job, putting in their days and nights’ hard work into the case, tracking all the six accused within five days and getting their confessions. The girl fought bravely for her life and justice for eleven days, after which she was transferred to Singapore for treatment where she died after two days and is known as “Nirbhaya”. Her friend who was traveling with her survived some major injuries and fought bravely for her friend’s justice.
The series brings to limelight the struggle faced by women every day, and the confinement they face because of some monstrous men. Vartika Chaturvedi’s daughter (Yashaswini Dayama) shows her apprehensiveness in living in Delhi and wishes to go to Canada. Vartika tries to talk her into focusing on the good things sustained in the city when the gang rape case takes place, which further displeases her stay in the city. The daring side of the DCP South Delhi when solving the case and dealing with certain personalities, then the soft side of a mother and the emotional side of a woman, all the phases have been spectacularly depicted by Shefali Shah.
Her right-hand man Bhupendra Singh (Rajesh Tailang) also is shown as facing problem in getting a suitable bride for his daughter due to his profession as a cop. The series also brings into the spotlight the political fractions, and how everything is weighted as either beneficial or non-beneficial for the political figures and not for the social cause. And the media just being a puppet in the hands of these political weasels, molding all the facts to suit their benefit, burying the gospel’s truth deep under the red-tapism.
This show comes out as more of an image whitewashing element, building the goodwill of Delhi cops during a situation of crisis. With what seems an attempt to bring to limelight the altruism cause of working of the police force, the show just washes out the stains off of their hands. But the show through all its impactful performances and the dialogue delivery misses out on one major element; the journey of her parents, how they coped up with the horrors and how they continued with their lives afterward. The show very vividly describes the crime, leaving you in a disturbed and outrageous condition on the cruelty of those six men and also leaves you to ponder over why these kinds of crimes have a high rate in India, to which a cop has a very thought-provoking answer,
“Simple hai yaar, economics hai. Ameero ki wajeh se kafi paisa aagaya hai society mein lekin vo gareebon takk pahochta nahi hai toh vo cheenne ki koshish krte hain jiski wajeh se unban paida hoti hai. Aur upar se hamare yahan toh boht jiada unpadh youth hai, sex education hai nahi, par internet pe free porn hai. Vo aurat ko ek cheeze ki tareh dekhne lagte hian aur chahte hain ki vo sb unki zindagi mei bhi ho. Nahi milta toh cheenne ki koshish krte hain bina unjaam ki parwah kiye”