Delhi Crime on Netflix: What is the Nirbhaya case? FREE now for the biggest moments from morning TV SUBSCRIBE Invalid email Sign up fornow for the biggest moments from morning TV When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Sometimes they'll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer. Our Privacy Notice explains more about how we use your data, and your rights. You can unsubscribe at any time. Delhi Crime: Netflix series based on case files of Delhi Police Delhi Crime was released on Netflix on Friday, March 22 with a cast led by the likes of Shefali Shah as Vartika Chaturvedi and Swati Bhatia as Ira. Delhi Crime is “based on the Nirbhaya case”, according to Netflix – a horrific rape and murder investigation which took place in India’s capital city in 2012. Here’s what happened in the Nirbhaya case and what the outcome was Is Delhi Crime on Netflix based on a true story? Delhi Crime on Netflix is based on the true story of the Nirbhaya case, but the series is a "fictionalised version of real events”. Netflix presents viewers with this message prior to each episode of Delhi Crime: “The following is inspired by case files”. The India-based drama, therefore, has stylised some scenes and added characters. WHERE IS DELHI CRIME ON NETFLIX FILMED? Delhi Crime on Netflix: Shefali Shah as Vartika Chaturvedi What is the Nirbhaya case? The Nirbhaya case regards the “horrific events of December 2012, when a young student was gang-raped and assaulted as she travelled home from an evening at the cinema”, according to the BBC. As a result, a 23-year-old woman, named Jyoti Singh Pandey, died of her injuries. Pandey’s death led to nationwide and global protests as people called for more to be done to protect women and others from such horrendous crimes. Six men were arrested and convicted on a number of charges, including murder and rape, after the incident. HOW MANY EPISODES OF DELHI CRIME ON NETFLIX ARE THERE? Delhi Crime on Netflix: Netflix series poster The DCP (Deputy Commissioner of Police) at the time was Chhaya Sharma, whose character in Delhi Crime goes by the name Vartika Chaturvedi (played by Shefali Shah). Sharma was the first high-ranking officer to see Pandey after the incident and it’s largely acknowledged her efforts and commitment to the case helped result in the convictions and changes in attitude towards Indian law. Actor Shah told the BBC why she felt it was so important for the story to be told. Shah said: “As a person - as a woman - yes, Nirbhaya was about the sheer loss of light, the pain, the agony.” “But when I read the script, I realised there was another woman [Sharma] - not a man - who picked this up and fought it through and got justice. She fought for all the women in this country.” As Delhi Crime in a Netflix Original, it won't appear on the likes of Hulu, Sky, or Amazon Prime. DELHI CRIME SEASON 2 RELEASE DATE ON NETFLIX Delhi Crime on Netflix: Director Richie Mehta<doc-sep>This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Netflix’s latest foray into the world of true-crime narratives, Delhi Crime, is an extremely hard-to-watch and provocative portrayal of one of the most infamous rape cases in recent history. The seven-part series centers around the 2012 police investigation of the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old woman and the beating of her male friend. The case sparked passionate protests and a worldwide conversation about the ways in which India and many other countries protect women against sexual attacks. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. The true story: On December 16, 2012, medical student Jyoti Singh Pandey and her friend Awindra Pratap Pandey were heading home after seeing a movie. They boarded a bus that was reportedly off-duty, although it already had five other passengers plus the driver. Awindra says he became nervous when the bus started taking a different route. The men on board shut off the lights, the bus stopped, and Awindra was brutally beaten and knocked unconscious with an iron rod. Jyoti was dragged to the back of the bus and beaten with the same iron rod while being sexually assaulted by those on board. Afterward, Jyoti and Awindra were abandoned in the middle of the road, while the rapists attempted to clean up the evidence from the bus. What happened after? Jyoti had suffered serious wounds to her abdomen, intestines, and genitals. It’s reported that she was also sodomized with the iron rod used in her beating. She underwent five surgeries and was declared stable after the fifth but was still considered in critical condition. Following public outrage, the government and Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, were intent on making sure Jyoti received the best treatment possible. On December 26, during a cabinet meeting, it was decided that Jyoti should be transferred from her hospital in New Delhi to Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore for further treatment. During the six-hour flight, Jyoti reportedly suffered a cardiac arrest and never regained consciousness. On December 28, Jyoti’s health continued to worsen and the doctors informed the press that she was suffering from severe brain damage, pneumonia, and infection. The next day, it was announced that Jyoti had passed away. Initially, Jyoti’s name was kept private due to sex-assault-victim privacy laws in India. She was referred to as Nirbhaya, meaning fearless. Her mother Asha Devi made her name public because she was “not ashamed” and wanted to destigmatize victims of sexual assault and their families. Tell me about the investigation: Less than 24 hours after the attack, the Delhi police used CCTV footage from the highway to locate bus driver Ram Singh. He was found and arrested in the same bus where the assault took place. Police located the others using sketches based on Awindra’s descriptions and texts sent from the victims’ stolen phones. Jyoti was only able to give statements through hand gestures and multiple-choice questions. The five remaining suspects were all found quickly. Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, and an unnamed 17-year-old were apprehended, and the police found Jyoti’s blood-stained clothes and the iron rod. Jyoti’s bite marks were found on the suspects bodies, as she’d fought back against the men. The Nirbhaya Jyoti Trust was launched by her family in her honor, providing shelter and resources for victims of sexual violence. What happened to the suspects? Although the driver died in jail in March 2013 (Singh was found hanging in Tihar Jail, where some believe he committed suicide, while others think he was murdered by inmates), the other perpetrators lived to face their crimes. The four other adult defendants were convicted of rape, kidnapping, murder, and destruction of evidence. They were sentenced to execution by hanging. The unnamed minor was convicted of murder and rape. He was sentenced to three years in jail, the maximum sentence for juveniles. He was released in 2015 and is reportedly living under a new identity. Still on death row, three of the convicted rapists filed for clemency with the Supreme Court in 2017. They were denied. Their lawyers are still fighting to have the death penalty lifted. However, Jyoti’s parents are requesting their sentence be carried out as soon as possible. Netflix Okay, what about the Netflix series? The series focuses much more on the investigation and police than the brutal events on the bus. Director Richie Mehta was initially against the idea of dramatizing this event but was “amazed” by the manhunt. “The verdict detailed the manhunt and who these people were and how they were found,” Mehta told the South China Morning Post. “I realized that this analysis of hunting these guys is also a way of understanding why these things happen.” Netflix Mehta, who chose not to show the scene of the crime, gained permission to tell the story from the victim’s family. “They completely understood what I was doing,” he said. “I said if they wanted me to stop, I’d stop. They were very gracious but also recognized that something positive could come from this.” The story centers around two female officers, Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah) and Neeti Singh (Rasika Dugal), who Mehta repeatedly checked in with. Delhi Crime was ordered by Netflix for two seasons. It will live as an anthology series, with season two taking on a completely different case. Emily Tannenbaum Entertainment Editor Emily is the entertainment editor at Cosmopolitan, which is a nice way of saying she watches way too much TV and constantly wants to tell you about it. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io<doc-sep>'Delhi Crime' review: Netflix original based on Nirbhaya case is brutal and brilliant The director shows great sensitivity by never showing or even using sound effects to recreate the actual rape. Yet he doesnâ€™t try to make the truth more palatable. Flix Netflix December 16, 2012, a normal day in Delhi where 11,000 heinous crimes are reported every year. Nothing is out of the ordinary till a couple is found naked and bleeding on the roadside by a police patrol van. They cover the couple in borrowed bedsheets and take them to the nearest hospital where the female victim describes in agonized whispers that she has been raped and violated with a rod. Words that began an investigation into a case that horrified a desensitised city and sent shock waves across the country. Delhi Crime, a seven-part Netflix original now streaming on the platform, is a police procedural drama that follows the six days after the horrific rape of Nirbhaya in a moving bus. The show focuses on the investigation into the case by a team of hardworking and dedicated police officers led by DCP Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah), ably assisted by her long-time lieutenant Bhupendar Singh (Rajesh Tailang), rookie cop Neeti Singh (Rasika Dugal) and a dedicated team of officers who apprehended all six suspects in record time. Canadian writer-director Richie Mehta chooses to tell the story from the point of view of the Delhi police, making them the underdog who was never expected to succeed. Inspite of limited financial and human resources, a self-serving chief minister trying to use the event to gain political mileage and a hostile press which was more interested in the trending sentiments than the truth, the DCP and her team refuses to concede defeat. They catch the first culprit Jai Singh by Day 2 and he cracks quickly confessing to the crime, revealing every gory detail with not an ounce of remorse or regret. Itâ€™s a scene that will make you sick to the stomach. The most chilling part of his confession is his conviction in the victimsâ€™ immorality. â€śHe was trying to kiss her, so we thought we could too. Itâ€™s because of men like him that the countryâ€™s values are going to the dogs,â€ť he yells passionately, his vacant psychotic eyes shining as he recounts his barbaric act. Two other culprits calmly say â€śWe just had sex with herâ€ť, quite sure that they have committed no crime. Itâ€™s an eyeopener in just how blurred the lines of consent are in our country, and how rape is not about lust or sex, but a manâ€™s brutal assertion of power over a woman. The team investigating the case have seen gangrape cases before, perhaps far too many for one lifetime, but this is not a â€śstandard gangrape caseâ€ť as one of them comments. As they travel to Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and even Jharkhand in pursuit of the rapists they keep asking the questions we found ourselves asking in the aftermath of the incident. Why her? How can anyone be so brutal? Why didn't one of them try to stop the others? Mehta shows great sensitivity by never showing or even using sound effects to recreate the actual rape. Yet he doesnâ€™t try to make the truth more palatable. The incident is described in complete detail thrice in the seven episodes, once by the accused, once the doctor and finally in one of the most heartbreaking moments, the victim herself. She shows almost superhuman strength is giving a lucid statement that will hold in court. He also cleverly paints a larger picture of gender issues in our country. A cop in Rajasthan is talking to a couple who has come in to file a dowry harassment case, Neeti is mocked by a male superior as the future DCP, a couple of frustrated officers compare women cops in the West to their own colleagues who â€śmake aloo parathas before workâ€ť, and Bhupendar struggles to find a groom for his daughter, whom he describes as fair and a good cook. The biases, the discrimination and the assumed inferiority are so deep-seated that one canâ€™t help but wonder if equality is truly an impossible dream. Yet, the woman at the helm of the investigation is anything but weak or unsure. Shefali Shah spearheads this fabulous ensemble with one of the best performances by any actor in recent times. Shahâ€™s character unlike the virile alpha males we see in mainstream films is real and nuanced. Whether itâ€™s slapping hardened criminals, cussing at lazy subordinates or asserting her authority, her gender is never highlighted to give her character brownie points. Yet as Indian viewers we canâ€™t help but be aware that almost an entire team of men are at command. Rajesh Tailang is equally good as the calm and experienced Bhupendar. Rasika Dugal, Adil Hussain as the Commissioner, Jaya Bhattacharya as officer Vimla Bharadwaj, and Yashaswini Dayama as Vartikaâ€™s daughter Chandni all put in impressive performances as do all the supporting actors cast perfectly by Mukesh Chhabra. The script by Richie Mehta who spent over four years researching the case has all the details and the required authenticity, but his greatest triumph is to create characters who serve as human manifestations of what ails the police force. Frustrated, tired, bored, cynical, and with literal festering wounds, this motley group of unlikely heroes each brings their unique expertise and vast experience in the field to the case. Watch out for the philosophical Sudhir, the limping Subhash and the staunch vegetarian Jairaj. These could have easily become one-note characters, but Mehta creates them with empathy and coaxes us to root for their success. Shot for long stretches using a stedicam that takes us deeper into the story, and edited with great finesse to build and release tension with precision, Delhi Crime is not perhaps an easy binge watch, but itâ€™s a compelling and gut-wrenching story that needed to be told and more importantly be seen. Saraswati Datar studied screenwriting and filmmaking and worked with mainstream TV channels in Mumbai as a writer and producer.<doc-sep>Delhi Crime is bound to make you uncomfortable when you’re forced to reconcile with the fact that you’re binging on the story of trauma. One of the great conflicts of watching Netflix’s new series Delhi Crime, is whether to recommend the show to others or not. For how can one? How can one in all good faith recommend a show that is challenging to watch, even potentially triggering, in and of itself; which then carries the added burden of being based on one of the most gruesome and most significant criminal cases in recent Indian history? But then, perhaps Delhi Crime is something that must be watched precisely because of what it’s about, and more importantly, the perspective we see the story from. On 17 December, 2012, India woke up to a piece of news that would go on to completely change the way we collectively viewed crimes against women. The Delhi gangrape sent the country into chaos for weeks. Politicians went into an attacking or defensive overdrive, depending on which side of the aisle they stood; the media threw every semblance of sensitivity and caution to the wind, barking out every opinion and purported fact that flew past their eyes and ears; and the public took to the streets, demanding the quickest and strictest form of justice. What we forget is that in the wee hours of the day, well before India even woke up, the mission to find and capture the accused was already well underway. Encumbered by ruthless misinformation, the ones who got overlooked in the noise were the police, and how they went about hunting down the six perpetrators of the crime, so they could be brought before the law to face the consequences of their heinous actions; all within mere days of the crime being committed. That’s the point of view we see in Delhi Crime. It’s a show that reminds us of something that we’re all perhaps aware of in theory, but doesn’t seem to reflect in our attitudes - the fact that our policewomen and men are mere humans, with families, personal worries, debts, existential crises, the works; not to mention the fact that our metropolitan forces in particular are severely outnumbered and overworked in the quest to do what’s ultimately just a job, albeit one like no other. The show begins on the morning of 16 December, before the ghastly crime, briefly introducing us to the cops who will eventually be thrust, over the next seven episodes, into a relentless manhunt that took the Delhi police outside Delhi - from rural Rajasthan to the Naxal-infested regions of Bihar and Jharkhand. Also read on Firstpost: Delhi Crime director Richie Mehta on his vision to create a project that gives viewers a sense of catharsis The most striking aspect of the show (apart from the characters, which I’ll get to) is its treatment and aesthetic. There are moments throughout the show where it feels almost like a documentary. There’s a quiet maturity with which it unfolds, with long takes and piquant silences. Make no mistake, while the show has a morally upright beating heart, it also has the sharp mind of an immensely bingeable TV series. The police procedural unfolds briskly, as leads are discovered, chased down and brought to their reasonable conclusion with professional precision, marred only by the practical realities of police work. The show doesn’t aim to glorify or whitewash the efforts of the police; rather, it provides us a glimpse of the fact that law enforcement as a whole is aware of the weight they’re carrying, when they set out to protect the public every single day. So there are all manner of cops who work on the case - from selfless ones to self-serving ones; from those that take their role in society seriously, to those who stumbled into the profession only by chance, but still don’t have the option to be lax on the job. Delhi Crime is no easy watch. In fact, it should come with a trigger warning. Despite the risks, it manages to maintain a tight balance between holding back on what the audience is exposed to and going all in as the grisly details of the case keep tumbling out. In fact, this balance - the constant edge you’re on while the pieces of the puzzle are put together and the event is reconstructed logically - is a distinct feature of the show. The visuals aren’t graphic, but the emotions certainly are. This probably stems from the kind of time writer-director Richie Mehta seems to have spent poring over the case files in the quest to craft his characters and his narrative. It leads to a show that is, at once, an unputdownable watch but an exhausting experience. However, walking with you every step of the way during that exhausting journey are the characters that drive it. Starting from DCP Vartika Chaturvedi (under whose jurisdiction the crime occurs) and downwards, the police personnel we encounter during the show win your heart despite the prevailing context. Shefali Shah, who plays DCP Vartika, gives us yet another remarkable performance, as the leading officer on the investigation. It’s a role that requires a tightrope walk between drama and authenticity, and Shefali absolutely nails it. You always sense her simmering under the surface, on the verge of exploding. Yet, she seems to explode at the wrong times, so to speak; until you notice that it’s a pattern. She seems to lose her cool in moments that don’t deserve it because in the real pressure cooker moments, she has to keep her cool in order to get the job done. And what that job is, well, you as the viewer are never allowed to forget. This is an outstanding performance that deserves to be lauded as much as anything we’ve seen recently. Then, there’s Rajesh Tailang, who plays Bhupender - Vartika’s right hand man on the case. It’s a role that’s almost as complex as that of Vartika, and Tailang becomes the character.<doc-sep>
True crime dramas are frequently engaging but don’t necessarily make for the easiest viewing experience. Shock, grief, and anger usually get involved as you watch the story unravel. All of these feelings are escalated in Netflix’s Delhi Crime. The seven-episode first season (which is mostly in English, with subtitled scenes in Hindi) is based on a real-life incident that took place in 2012 in India's capital of New Delhi – the horrific gang-rape of a physiotherapy intern on a moving city bus. With Delhi Crime, it's the shock at the heinousness of the crime that comes first. The starting point of the series is the discovery of the naked, injured bodies of Deepika and Akash (names changed for the show). Akash, who has sustained bruises but is stable, tells the officers they were robbed and beaten in a bus by several men, including the driver. They proceeded to sexually and violently assault Deepika, who is now hanging on for her life. Though I already knew most of the gory details, hearing them again hit me right in the gut. Until now, I had only read about it in the news. Now, a battered face on my screen was painfully explaining them to me all over again. Thankfully, Delhi Crime is not exploitative its depiction of this violence. The show does not get visually graphic about the details; we just hear about them through various characters. Instead, the series primarily focuses the next six days, during which a small team of police officers went on a nationwide manhunt and eventually nabbed all six culprits. The fictionalized narrative is woven together by Canadian-Indian filmmaker Richie Mehta, based on case files, interviews, and permissions he obtained. The show’s protagonist is Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah), a somber deputy commissioner who is naturally shaken by this brutality. She gathers a trusted crew to immediately begin working the case, including her right-hand man Bhupendra (Rajesh Taigal) and promising new trainee Neeti (a subdued, terrific Rasika Dugal). Shah maneuvers the complexities of her character like a pro. Vartika is a disciplined, dutiful officer who has to maintain her composure while interrogating men who committed truly violent acts. She's teetering on the edge of breaking down, as grief and anger begin to set in, but she rarely lets go of her willpower, even in the face of personal, professional, and political obstacles. Her inner turmoil keeps the momentum going and keeps you invested, despite the slightly too-long 50-minute run time of each episode. Delhi Crime tackles the investigation in a pretty straightforward manner. There are no sudden twists or eureka moments. The show has a gritty vibe throughout and is never propped up with the glamor we've come to expect with most Indian-origin entertainment. The starkly middle-class portrayal of Indian police officers differs from the crime shows we usually get in the U.S. Delhi Crime nods at this in its penultimate episode when some overworked, tired local cops talk about how they lack unions, weekends off, and maybe even the correct training to carry out their tasks as efficiently as, say, the NYPD. The show is structured through the lens of the cops – the mounting pressure on them and their internal struggles to quell their own rage. It's a narrative not often seen coming out of India, because of the public assumption of heavy police corruption. Delhi Crime steers away from this issue by letting a headstrong woman like Vartika be in charge and giving her crew some meaningful stories of their own. Delhi Crime is not here to give you a happy ending. You can't expect one anyway, and they know it too. The series is not without its faults. This is a case that got international attention and led to several large-scale protests in New Delhi and throughout the country. Young people showed up in droves at national monuments and demanded justice, and police officers were deployed to charge at them with water cannons and sticks. The show hints at the magnitude of these consequences, but doesn't dwell on them too much. I wish it had. It would have given the global audience a stronger understanding of why this particular case mattered so much, and of how public outrage forced the politicians and the police to move faster than they normally would. There is also way too much focus on Vartika's teenage daughter Chandni and her feelings about this case.