Netflix’s ‘Delhi Crime’ Leaves You Unsatisfied And Uncomfortable

December 16,2012–the date no Indian can ever forget, the date that left a scar on every India’s soul, the date when the most heinous crime took place and left a lot of annihilation behind, the date after which Delhi came to be known as the ‘Rape Capital of the World’. How can we forget the ghastly Delhi-gangrape case, when a 23-year old Jyoti Pandey who dreamt of becoming a doctor was brutally raped in a bus on her way back home after watching a movie with her friend Awindra Pratap Pandey.

Many of us have watched India’s Daughter, a documentary made by BBC which was based on the same incident but regrettably, the court passed the order to stop the broadcasting soon after its release, as the documentary included an interview of Mukesh Singh the main accused guilty of rape and murder. In his interview, he said “When being raped, she shouldn’t have fought back. She should have just remained silent and allowed us to rape. Then we would have dropped her off after raping her, and only hit the boy”.

There are many other contents available online related to the same incident but I recently came across the most powerful of them which is currently streaming on Netflix. The Netflix India Original, Delhi Crime, created, written and directed by Richie Mehta is based on the investigation of the most dreadful Delhi gang-rape case of 2012, which is also known as Nirbhaya gang-rape case. It has been streaming on Netflix since 22 March 2019, and the series is making the news since then.

Let’s Talk About The Unfolding Of The Story

While the other shows/documentaries have covered more about the incident, Delhi Crime – a seven-episode series, on the other hand, has focused only on the investigation undertaken by Delhi Police. The introductory narration tells all about the series. The story revolves around the character of Vartika Chaturvedi, DCP South Delhi (Shefali Shah) who wakes up abruptly in the middle of the night with a phone call that informs her that a naked and badly couple is found lying in a ditch in the middle of a road. Vartika then smelt a rat and immediately begins the investigation. She was terrified when she came to know about the brutality of the case. Vartika also states during the investigation that she has a young daughter almost the age of Deepika (the victim).

Richie Mehta, the creator of the show said that there was a lot of anger when the crime happened. He met the police officials involved in the investigation, as his motive was to bring their point of view forward in front of the public through this series.

However, inspector Anil Sharma is upset with the makers of the show and is planning to take the legal action against them for the depiction of a character based on him. Anil Sharma was earlier the SHO of the Vasant Vihar police station where the case was registered in 2012. The police officer said that he regularly used to meet the victim when she was admitted in hospital and also used to spend some time with her. He said he had not missed a single hearing in the case and is still in touch with the victim’s family whom he describes as an extended family. Anil Sharma hasn’t watched the series yet but he now claims that Richie Mehta has apologized to him.

However, the ending of the show left many viewers unsatisfied and uncomfortable as well. Although all the culprits were nabbed by the Delhi Police in the show, Neeti, the trainee IPS officer tells Vartika that she doesn’t care about the investigation, she does not want to celebrate the nabbing of all the culprits, she just wants Deepika (Nirbhaya) to fully recover soon.

The fact is that there couldn’t have been a happy ending to this crime tale, because we all know what happened thereafter. Nirbhaya (Deepika in this series) died afterward and left everyone with teary eyes and took everyone back to the horrifying day of December 16, 2012, that shook the entire nation.