I would say Aditya Nimbalkar’s Sector 36 is not just a crime thriller about a serial killer, but it also holds a mirror to a flawed society as it shows how the corrupt justice system often fails those who cannot afford to “buy” justice. Because it is often seen how justice is served for the privileged like film stars or politicians because they can offer something in return, whether it’s money, influence, or favors. On the other hand, the poor, who lack such resources, are often neglected by the police because there’s nothing to be gained from helping them. The plot revolves around Prem, a serial killer who abducts children from a slum area and then cuts them in pieces to either eat their flesh or trade their organs. Multiple parents from this slum approach the police station to file complaints, but Sub-Inspector Ram Charan Pandey only takes their FIRs, showing little interest or urgency to act on the case. His indifference, along with the growing pile of missing children’s posters on the walls, reflects the deeply flawed society we live in. However, something shifts in Ram Charan Pandey, and he starts to investigate this case seriously, so what really happened? By the end of the film, he successfully catches the criminal. How did this happen and what eventually happens to Prem and Ram Charan? That’s what we are going to find out in this explainer of the movie Sector 36, streaming on Netflix.
Spoilers Ahead
Why did Ram Charan start to investigate the case of missing children?
As the movie introduced us to the character of Ram Charan Pandey, it quickly became clear that he wasn’t interested in being a righteous cop who fought for justice, as he loved bribes, and that’s why the cases that came with cash incentives got his full attention, while those that didn’t, he simply ignored. That’s why even though Ram Charan knew all about children going missing from the Sector 36 slum, he didn’t care. Even when a young boy named Ali discovered a severed hand and some bones in the drainage area which clearly came from children, Ram Charan dismissed it, saying the remains might’ve floated in from some other sewage stream. Later, when Ali himself was abducted by the serial killer Prem, Ram Charan still didn’t bother, because he thought maybe it was a blessing in disguise. After all, these children’s parents are migrants who had come to the city from villages in hope for a better life, but now they couldn’t even afford food, let alone to take care of their children. So, if a few kids went missing, who cares, less mouths to feed for those struggling families. But everything changed on the night of the Dussehra fair in their colony, because that evening, they performed the Ramayana, and though Ram Charan had “Ram” in his name, his behavior resembled Ravana’s more than the righteous hero’s. A desperate father approached him during the fair and pleaded for help because his daughter, Chumki, had gone missing from his master Bassi Saheb’s house. The poor man begged repeatedly, but Ram Charan barely acknowledged him. But suddenly, Ram Charan’s own daughter went missing from that fair: naturally he started panicking and started searching everywhere for his daughter. Thankfully, he spotted a man in a Ravana mask running away with his daughter in his arms. Ram Charan chased after him, but the man, who turned out to be Prem, was too fast. Prem realized he had made a mistake by kidnapping a police officer’s child, so he dropped her and ran off. Hence, Ram Charan couldn’t catch him, and the mask prevented him from seeing Prem’s face. In that moment, Ram Charan finally understood the fear and helplessness of a parent, after all, if he couldn’t even protect his own child, how could he save anyone else’s? This realization marked a turning point for him, and Ram no longer wanted to act like Ravana, he wanted to be the savior like Ram. So, he decided to take Chumki’s case seriously as he realized that the man who’ tried to abduct his daughter could be the same one responsible for the countless missing children from Sector 36.
Why did Ram Charan get suspended?
Ram Charan Pandey decided to dig deeper into Chumki’s case and headed to Bassi Saheb’s house, the last place she was seen before she went missing. There, he met Prem, Bassi Saheb’s servant, who worked at the house. What Pandey didn’t know at first was that this very house was Prem’s “workplace,” where he committed his gruesome crimes. Pandey got to know from there that Chumki was a prostitute who was pimped by her own father to work for Bassi Saheb in exchange for thirty thousand rupees a month. When Pandey questioned Bassi Saheb about Chumki’s disappearance, he became furious, because he couldn’t believe that a cop would dare question him! And that’s why Bassi Saheb called Pandey’s senior, DCP Jawahar, to complain about Pandey’s boldness. Even though Pandey had valid reasons for questioning Bassi Saheb, Jawahar didn’t care, and threatened to suspend Pandey if he wouldn’t stop wasting time on a “lowly prostitute” or missing slum children. Instead, he insisted Pandey should focus on more important cases, like a missing child from an industrialist’s family. We even saw Jawahar manage to solve that case quickly after finding the industrialist’s son and catching the kidnappers, which earned him a promotion. But Pandey couldn’t let Chumki’s case go, so he kept investigating and soon found a key clue: the rickshaw driver who had dropped Chumki off at Bassi Saheb’s house had received a phone from Prem, so Pandey realized that Prem, the servant, was the real criminal and the mastermind behind all the child abductions. However, by going against Jawahar’s orders, Pandey had crossed a dangerous line because, Jawahar wasn’t just angry that Pandey worked on cases even though he told him not to, but also because Bassi Saheb was Jawahar’s close friend and that’s why Bassi Saheb’s protection was a priority for Jawahar. So, Jawahar suspended Ram Charan Pandey and took away his gun and badge as he dared to stand up to the system and investigate “unimportant” cases.
What happened to Prem?
Pandey didn’t give up on tracking Prem, even after being suspended as he wanted to gather enough evidence to prove Prem was the main culprit. He noticed that Prem often met with a compounder and frequently delivered an icebox to him. Then, it clicked—this compounder was the same man Pandey’s colleague, Pathak, had mentioned earlier; he was in the ambulance the night Pandey’s daughter was rushed to the hospital after her attempted kidnapping. With this connection, Pandey and Pathak abducted the compounder to interrogate him. Pandey knew that DCP Jawahar, who was now being promoted to the IBI, wouldn’t interfere in his case anymore, and he hoped the new SP, Bhupen Saikia, might help as he had a reputation for being a righteous officer, and Pandey’s instinct was right—SP Saikia did try to help by pushing for the compounder’s questioning. But before Pandey could interrogate the compounder, Jawahar found out about it from Pathak as he double-crossed Pandey because Jawahar had promised Pathak a promotion to the next SI if he cooperated, and that is how Bassi Saheb’s men tracked down the compounder’s location and murdered him to silence the key witness. However, this was enough for SP Saikia to give Pandey the green light to bring Prem in for questioning. When they finally confronted Prem at the police station, he showed no remorse, and like a typical psychopath, he explained how his thirst for killing and eating human flesh began: Prem had been assaulted by his uncle in childhood, and in revenge, he’d butchered his uncle and eaten his flesh. Then, Prem coldly admitted to choking Chumki to death because she had disrespected him. He then cut her body into pieces after raping her, though he claimed he didn’t sell her organs because he had “fallen in love” with her. However, he did confess to abducting 22 to 24 children from the slums and selling their organs to send the money to his family, and disposing of their bodies in the drainage system to mask the stench. What disturbed Pandey the most was Prem’s belief that he was doing these children a favor by killing them, because these kids had no future, trapped in poverty, and their lives were meaningless; so death was better than a life full of suffering in the slums. Pandey and his team didn’t need any more evidence. From the drainage area and the backyard of Bassi Saheb’s house, they found bones and skulls, which were enough proof of Prem’s horrifying crimes and therefore finally, Prem was arrested.
What happened to Ram Charan Pandey?
Jawahar didn’t take kindly to Pandey challenging him, so to take revenge, he fired him from the police force and made SP Saikia the new DCP of Shahdara. Jawahar knew Pandey wouldn’t stop there and would likely sniff around to get information about Bassi Saheb as well. And he was right. Even after being dismissed, Pandey went to meet Prem at the police station, as he was determined to find out if Bassi Saheb was involved in the crimes. At first, Prem wasn’t willing to betray his master, whom he referred to as “Pappa Ji,” like a father figure. But when Prem learned that the compounder had been killed by Bassi’s men, so he couldn’t send money to Prem’s wife and kids, and that Bassi himself denied any involvement and put all the blame on Prem, something shifted in him and eventually, Prem cracked and told Pandey about a CD hidden in Prem’s village house, titled Evergreen Hits. According to Prem, this CD held evidence of Bassi’s involvement in the crimes. So, Pandey trusted Pathak and borrowed his laptop and headed to Prem’s village house to find the CD. While the movie doesn’t explicitly show what was on the CD, it’s strongly implied that it contained footage or evidence of Bassi’s sexual relations with girls and possibly their murders to trade their organs. This discovery was a huge piece of evidence that could have exposed Bassi Saheb’s dark secrets. But the problem was, Bassi’s men got to know about Pandey’s actions, likely through Pathak, who had betrayed him before. They tracked Pandey down, caught him, and ultimately killed him for daring to go against the system. In the end, the CD—containing all the evidence that could’ve brought Bassi Saheb to justice—was destroyed by Bassi’s men to make sure that their powerful corrupt master remained untouched.
At the end of Sector 36 movie, we see how Pathak becomes the new Sub-Inspector, which truly proves how the corrupt system really rewards those who help to protect the powerful. But at the end Pathak’s subordinate Bishnoi gets news that three of Bassi’s men who killed Ram Charan Pandey were finally caught. And then, Bishnoi receives a mysterious CD at his doorstep, another Evergreen Hits CD, which suggests someone is still out there who is trying to bring down Bassi Saheb. Now, if you ask me, I feel like it could be DCP Bhupen Saikia behind all of this. We’ve seen how he used Pandey to climb the ranks from SP to DCP, as he didn’t completely shut down Pandey’s investigation, unlike Jawahar, who was protecting the rich at all costs. Saikia kept the case alive just enough, which makes me think he’s playing a smart, hidden game. Because I believe Saikia knows how dangerous it is to openly go against the system as he had been transferred many times by doing so, and that’s how his experience has made him smart enough to not end up like Pandey. Maybe that’s why he wanted to gather more evidence in secret to wait for the right moment to use it against Bassi and might use someone like Bishnoi as a scapegoat, just like he did with Pandey. So even though as for now Bassi has managed to escape jail and Prem is the only one who got the death sentence, but we can hope by using the CD as evidence there is a chance that justice will be served.
