With India’s one of the most horrendous crime events as a plot and cherry-on-top heart-winning performances, Netflix’s “Delhi Crime” has already garnered praise from critics across the globe. Directed by Indo-Canadian filmmaker Richie Mehta, this seven-episode TV series delineates the 2012 Delhi Nirbhaya Rape-Murder Case, which shook humanity from its core roots and won the International Emmy Awards for “Outstanding Drama Series”, for the first time for any Indian series. “Delhi Crime” Season 1 covers a span from December 16th to December 21st, 2012; six vital days from Deepika’s brutal rape and murder to the arrest of all the heinous culprits, along with the concurrent socio-political and emotional skirmishes among police, politicians, and the public. So it is nothing less than an exhilarating roller coaster journey that follows a predetermined path for the audience. And now, Netflix is all set to premiere its “Delhi Crime” Season 2, which is too, with its familiar cast and a thrilling and authentic serial killing plotline. But before that, let’s dive into the depths of Season 1’s picturesque.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Delhi Crime’ Season 1: Plot Summary – How The Fate Brings The Couple To Hospital?
“Delhi Crime” unfolds its wings on a normal day of winter in New Delhi, the capital of India, where everyone is pushing their boundaries to fulfill their dreams. We see the responsible DCP of South Delhi, Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah), feeling relieved when a notorious criminal is caught, or a young lady who finally feels independent with her new dream job in the police force. Suddenly, in between this merry and chaos, a passing highway police patrol car finds a young couple lying on the Mahipalpur flyover in the late night, nude and covered in blood. They were rescued shortly and carried to Safdarjung Hospital. The brutality was not expected to be this gigantic, but soon the groan and injury of the female victim, Deepika (Abhilasha Singh), knocks on the door of DCP Chaturvedi in the middle of the night. She rushes to the hospital and is informed in detail of Deepika’s horrific gang rape, which just sweeps the ground away beneath her feet. She learns every point of the incident from Akash (Sandeep Bishnoi), the male victim who sustains non-life-threatening injuries.
DCP is told that the couple had gone to see a movie but couldn’t find a direct way back to their homes, so they had to take a bus from the Munirka Bus Stop. He provides every detail he could about the bus they had boarded, where six individuals—all from the driver’s cabin—had forcefully gang-raped Deepika and beat them. Along with raping her and beating her with a rusted iron rod, they also inserted the rod through her anal and genital orifices, mutilating her and even yanking out some of her intestines. After a failed effort to slash them, they were later tossed out of the bus and left on the flyover. The exact moment DCP realizes this horrifying crime requires special attention and does not fall under standard gang rape brutality, she decides to handle this case personally and creates a special investigation force with her handpicked officers, including Bhupendra Singh (Rajesh Tailang), to rip the city off and find those insane offenders. The DCP appointed Neeti Singh (Rasika Dugal), a young constable, to take care of the victim’s family. No wonder this demonic act tears all of them into pieces. They also understand that if the suspects were not promptly apprehended, the system would be in serious peril on all fronts.
The Hunt Starts Without A Delay: How Are The Culprits Grabbed?
The chase begins with the bus. They eventually discover the first hint of the bus and driver on CCTV footage after many trials and errors. They get to know about another robbed victim from the same bus whose given identification matches the criminals’ profiles. The forensic team works hard to gather data from the bus and the flyover where the couple was thrown out. Even though the offenders tried to hide every scrap of evidence, the forensic team recovered every drop of blood and muck. Thus, less than 24 hours after the incident, the team miraculously apprehends Jai Singh (Mridul Sharma), the first and most heinous suspect.
After Jai Singh’s interrogation and confession, the police are dumbfounded. Their minds are blown by how cockily he declares his wrongdoing. However, the turbulence begins when the Chief Minister of Delhi NCR attempts to use this occurrence as justification to place the Delhi Police under the State Ministry by charging them with lacking the necessary expertise to manage this delicate case. The ongoing dispute between the state and federal governments, the poor infrastructure, the intrusive media coverage, the obscene amount of red tape, and the ample accusations of “doing nothing to prevent crime” attempted to choke the whole police force. Furious for their safety, people take to the streets, and there are several protests taking place throughout the entire city.
Meanwhile, two of the culprits, Brajesh and Vikash, whose names are mentioned by Akash, are also caught in their slum. The force arranges two different tiresome interstate expeditions with their efficient officers to arrest two other culprits, Amar, Jai’s brother from Rajasthan, and Alok from Bihar. Sonu, the lone juvenile perpetrator, is nabbed at Anand Vihar Bus Stand. Last but not least, after six days of nonstop work with tonnes of ifs and buts, people finally get some relief, but question marks remain in the air.
The Women In Power: How Did They Handle The Case Along With Their Lives?
From the very beginning, we see DCP Vartika struggling with her only child, Chandni’s (Yashaswini Dayama) decision, as she does not want to live in Delhi anymore and wants to go to Toronto for higher studies. Vartika does not want to lose her daughter just like the other five frightened mothers. She had intended to show her some of Delhi’s best sights, but this situation came as a catastrophe. She understands that there is a significant difference between confronting lunatic criminals and confronting an underdeveloped teenage girl. She may not have been particularly soft-spoken in the earlier episodes due to her tight regular lifestyle, but she never fails to demonstrate that she has a heart of gold. Her spouse, Vishal Chaturvedi (Denzil Smith), who supports her in every way, is there for her. We appreciate him for making his wife smile in the face of intense political and public pressure. In addition, Bhupendra is seen making every effort to arrange his daughter’s wedding, but his efforts are always futile due to his profession. Thus, “Delhi Crime” serves as a mirror for how quickly we stereotype everyone, share our viewpoints, and blame them for not being responsible enough. Not everyone has this kind of devotion to their line of work. In the police station, we observe Vasant Vihar SHO Vinod (Vinod Sharawat), showing no concern about the power outages. He made a sexist comment on Neeti, who had just recently joined the force, and reprimanded the constable for being late, despite he had a valid reason and tried to escape the tough scenario. However, as the story progresses, we witness this character significantly changing as he sees bite marks on the victim’s face, does his utmost to get the offenders’ dental casts, and wishes to take responsibility for the jail mishap. As a result, “Delhi Crime” teaches us that good and evil are everywhere but that only the bad have the power to change for the better and take the lead.
Neeti is a young woman from the periphery who moved to Delhi to live independently, but her parents are trying to have her married to an army officer she hardly knows. Sarcastically, when she was questioned if her parents would sell the television for dowry in the middle of her duties while thousands of people were yelling for their safety, the picture-perfect patriarchy was ironically demonstrated. On her first day of work, she impresses DCP Vartika by stopping a vehicle carrying a shipment of ivory tusks. A novice, though, may not be aware of every “do” and “don’t.” She becomes upset because her sincere gratitude towards DCP was misunderstood as cajoling. She learns how and when emotions need to be managed when she witnesses Jai Singh’s guiltless gaze during an interrogation and also her rigorous senior breaching the no contact policy after knowing all the criminals have been apprehended. They hold back all of their rages against the most terrible offenders to keep them psychologically and physically fit to uphold the law. When SI Vimla (Jaya Bhattacharya) phones one of the offenders’ mothers to let him know that she is okay and names Sonu as the juvenile, it is obvious how devoted she is to her job.
An Emotional Turmoil: Delhi Police Being Everyone’s Inspiration
“Delhi Crime” Season 1 emphasizes emotion as a key component. Through well-defined individuals, the director delicately captures the basic human emotions. We observe constable Ram Pratap (Asif Ali) arguing with his senior SHO about a genuine and sensitive issue. He requests people to bring bed sheets so that the victim can be covered after the first police van arrives at the crime scene. When he realizes the girl is in excruciating pain, we witness his helplessness as he begs the driver to drive steadily to lessen the anguish the road jerks will cause her. After transporting the victims to the hospital, his job is not done. After a tough week, we finally witnessed him finally returning home with his wife’s medications. In addition, Chandni, DCP Vartika’s daughter, undergoes a radical transformation from a rebellious adolescent to an understanding adult who doesn’t see her mother at home and gets into a battle with a classmate who disparages her mother. Like most other inquisitive kids, we observe her attending the protests and putting her trust in the police system as her mother. Additionally, Sudhir’s (Gopal Dutt) explanation of why men commit rape wins our hearts as he perfectly blends all the possible answers, including the economic crisis, a lack of sex education, etc.
The Delhi Police’s nationwide search for Alok and Amar is highly commended throughout the entire series. They can be seen losing all of their patience. Lack of time to finish their meals, dealing with individuals of various ideologies, the constant threat of Naxalite attacks, and the list goes on. After failing to capture Alok from his in-laws’ home in Jharkhand, we witness Jairaj (Anurag Arora) and his squad having nothing to eat. Even though he frequently voices his complaints about the Indian police system, he is the one who never speaks again after receiving orders from his superiors. Not only him but also the fact that SHO Subhas is making every effort to make up for his former debt to DCP Vartika demonstrates to us how necessary the symbiosis is to safeguard a nation. We adore how the benevolent high command, Joint CP (Adil Hussain), handles all accusations and deals with politicians and their agendas while keeping his composure and defending his unit in every way necessary to ensure a successful hunt.
Jai Singh, A Nightmare
The portrayal of Jai Singh in “Delhi Crime” Season 1 is another very crucial turning point. He is seen taking advantage of his immobile arm and tricking people with his innocent demeanor, but as he begins to confess, his eyes shift. He describes the torment in detail with remorseless eyes that are ablaze with malicious pride and self-esteem. He is not even guilty of what he did, and adding salt to the injuries; he put all the blame on Akash for groping Deepika inappropriately on the bus. Jai Singh believes that the girl deserved this suffering and death, which he used to validate his fanatical and misogynistic behavior. In a blink of an eye, Jai Singh becomes an alien, for whom people were ready to buy tickets to see, even to kill. The police struggle to keep them safe, even within the jail, because of the obvious infuriated human reaction towards them.
Even though Akash is never sufficiently trustworthy, the case, unfortunately, stands against him. We are deeply saddened by Akash’s dramatic character change. In front of Deepika’s parents, we witness him apologizing for not doing enough to protect her, but this Akash suddenly wants the public’s and the media’s attention and plans to give an interview, which unquestionably damages the case. Bhupendra doubted that if Akash had truly attempted to save her, he would not have sustained such minor injuries. Following this discussion, Bhupendra declared that if such an occurrence involved his girlfriend, he would fight till his last breath. This statement breaks our hearts, but it also demonstrates what a real man should be like.
Lastly, the unwavering support of family and friends is also beautifully illustrated. Although we observe all the police officers being worn out or upset, their momentary suffering is quickly alleviated by the support of their loved ones.
Final Words: An Unsettled Ending Leaves us to Brood
“Delhi Crime” does not step onto a typical cat and mouse break. In addition to concluding the most notorious case in Indian criminal history and identifying the satanic perpetrators in less than a week, it illustrates how weak we are as individuals and how powerful a system is where people work together constantly. Delhi Police are able to effectively arrest all the offenders despite dealing with great emotional agony. This show is a homage to all the security personnel who sacrifice their own lives to safeguard ours. The vulnerable sides of police personnel show that they are human too. Just as other people are unaware of the burdens we bear on a daily basis, we also don’t know their liabilities. However, we use them as our softer targets to expose all of our critical judgements.
Even though “Delhi Crime” is about the brutal gang rape of Deepika, the filmmaker chose not to show us any specific visuals of it, instead allowing us to piece it together from our memory of their numerous remarks. The show rarely veers from its main plot and is almost entirely realistic. It is also not at all exploitative. Your mind will be continually puzzled by it as it jumbles all the intense feelings. With its breath-taking performances, “Delhi Crime” Season 1 does not over-show the social patriarchy as there was no nasty inquiry of the girl’s character, her presence in the night with a boy, even the woman in power is not less respected, etc. Although this series can be described as medium-paced, it undoubtedly broadens our vision of the Indian social environment and its inhabitants. In the end, we see that Neeti is not satisfied with the celebrations because her sole concern is Deepika’s recovery; and Jai Singh also dies in custody. So the conclusion of this series is more ambivalent than just satisfactory. Despite all this, “Delhi Crime” unquestionably gives you a terrifying insight into how and who commits crimes in India and also who solves them.
What to Expect From Season 2 Of “Delhi Crime”?
The wait for “Delhi Crime” Season 2 is finally over. All of our familiar faces are ready to solve yet another terrifying crime in the season 2 trailer. Portraying a completely different storyline, Season 2 introduces psychotic assassins who focus on the senior citizens and are based on the infamous Chaddi Baniyan killing technique. They are using an odd modus operandi that the police force asserts has never been used in any other crime. Hammers, rods, and axes are used as murder weapons by the killers, who wear undergarments and masks as well as grease their bodies to help them elude their prey. There is no doubt that the city is utterly terrified as a result of the repeated killings of elderly people. When the police detain a large number of defendants from lower social classes, innocent bystanders face detachment or loss of their jobs. Once more, a judgmental society is in charge. DCP Vartika is shown arguing that no one is a born criminal and considering how the poor should be granted fundamental rights. Chandni is probably abroad, and Neeti, who is always cool and calm, is also shown to be enraged. One more time, the entire city is in the streets as the police look for the fault in themselves. What follows next? This Friday, we shall find out.
“Delhi Crime” is a 2019 Indian Crime Drama series streaming on Netflix with subtitles.
