"Delhi Crime", based on Nirbhaya case files, explores the 2012 heinous gangrape and murder from the viewpoint of the Delhi Police team that probed the incident, but Netflix's new web series was shot with a non-judgemental eye, says director Richie Mehta.
The seven-part series, which starts streaming Friday, directed by the Indian-Canadian filmmaker follows the investigation to nab the six males who raped the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern on a cold December night in a moving bus in the national capital. She died of her grievous injuries 13 days later in a Singapore hospital.
Mehta said it was a family friend serving in Delhi Police who suggested him to make a film on the subject. He started the research in 2013 after a trial court convicted and gave death sentence to the four adult defendants.
After four years of research and writing, the director said he came up with a 170-page bible followed by 430-page script, wherein he has explored the perspective of "the people who were in the front lines".
"I realised they have a point of view on these things that we don't talk about. We had a very visceral reaction to this particular case and these are the people who are doing it every day. So why aren't we talking to them and getting their points of view?" Mehta told PTI in an interview here.
The director, known for films like "Amal" and "Siddharth", has not depicted the act of gangrape in the series neither in visuals nor audio.
"I was very clear from the beginning that I didn't want to showcase the rape scene because I wanted the series to be about the procedure, not the crime," he said.
Mehta said the team filmed the series as if they were a "bystander", sneaking up to see and listen in to what was happening.
"We would take point of view shots, bystander shots. Sometimes we took long shots, people are walking down the hallway and we're behind them or we are just a person listening in. This was part of the non-judgmentalness of it. The whole show was shot in that particular style."
"I said to myself every day in those first four years that if somebody else does it, fine'. It will alleviate the pain I was going through. I would have been happy if somebody did the exact same show."
"There was a presentation of similar viewpoints through TV or media. By the time I made the decision to go shoot this two years ago, it was after knowing that I had come upon a point of view which has not been expressed."
Asked about the portrayal of the then Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit (though there is a gender swap) and the press, Mehta said, "What I'm saying is exactly what is presented there. So, I don't believe I'm presenting anything that people don't know."
"We demand that they catch these people and so I thought let's actually look at what that means. There are cops who don't go home for months at a time or a sub-inspector may not have a vehicle to go to the crime scene. There are power cuts at the police station every day. These back stories are inspired by many people who are all real."