The Butcher of Delhi is a three-part docuseries, directed by Ayesha Sood and produced by VICE India, that details the case of a serial killer that would leave dismembered bodies around Delhi, usually along with notes that taunted Delhi Police with details of their own investigation that they have missed.
In 2006, cops received a phone call from a man saying he has dropped a body at a gate of Tihar, a large jail complex. When officers came to inspect the body, they found the decapitated body wrapped multiple times, with no sign of where the head was. A note accompanying the body cursed the authorities, intimidated them, and told them that the writer had issues with law enforcement in the past; he served time for a crime he claimed he did not commit.
Because the body could not be identified, the investigation suffered until 2007, till another body was dumped in front of the prison complex, this time with no note, but dismembered and wrapped in a similar way. Then soon after, another body was dumped, with a note that forensic scientists figured out was written by the same person as the first note. Soon, Sunder Singh and his investigative team were on the trail of a man named Chandrakant Jha, based on neighborhood slang he used, informant information, and other such clues.
One thing that hit us the most about the series was that for a viewer who does not have the right Indian sensibilities, watching a patchy documentary based on interviews may be a bit confusing unless helmed by a narrator. We sorely missed one here.
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The show however gets to the point quickly: Here are the bodies, the reason why it was so tricky to investigate, and why the idea of a serial killer in India’s capital city is an uncommon idea, and how they got on Jha’s trail.
During the three episodes, we hope against hope that Sood might delve a little deeper into the psychological reasons for Jha’s pathology.
In one of his letters to cops, he says he must kill a certain number of people per year or “I’ll lose my shit.” But she refrains from going down that path.
The process by which authorities manage to patch the mystery together using mostly circumstantial evidence, like the provincial jargon, which helped them narrow the list of potential suspects helping the detectives use their informant network was a fascinating thread but it doesn’t do a deeper dive.
The smart investigators are adept at cracking tough cases wherever in the world they are, their experience, attention to detail, eyes on street network are a big win for them.
The apathetic legal system where Jha, who was imprisoned for similar murders but ended up being released is really a statement about how the system that is meant to deter crime actually festers it,
Indian Predator: The Butcher of Delhi does not go off track anywhere. It strictly sticks to the investigation of one of the most brutal serial killings in the history of the Indian capital and stays there.
