Murder In A Courtroom’, the third installment of Netflix’s true crime series ‘Indian Predator’, documents the life and crimes of notorious rapist-murderer Akku Yadav, who terrorised the inhabitants of the Kasturba Nagar slums in Nagpur, Maharashtra. The season recreates his astonishing murder in the courtroom by 50+ slum women, armed only with chilli powder, stones and kitchen knives.
Indian Predator: Murder In A Courtroom is written and directed by Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni, produced by Vishal Jain, and executive produced by Samira Kanwar, Ashwin Rai Shetty, Vatsala Aron and Niharika Kotwal.
After two decidedly lackluster seasons of Indian Predator, Netflix is back with the third installment of its Indian Original true crime series. Thankfully, ‘Murder In A Courtroom’ is quite unlike its predecessors, both in tone and pace. The narrative this season is taut, gripping and surprisingly chilling.
The first episode begins with the astonishing incident that made headlines the world over – the passion-and-rage-filled lynching of notorious criminal Akku Yadav, bang in the middle of the courtroom, in broad daylight, carried out by over 50 fiesty slum women, armed to their teeth — with chilli powder, stones and kitchen knives. With this, the narrative succeeds well and truly in grabbing the attention of the viewer.
The series then straightway trains the spotlight on the plucky, outspoken women at the centre of the hullabaloo – the gutsy women, old and young – who carried out the stunning killing of the man who had terrorised them for almost a decade. As the women speak up, they help the viewer piece together the story of a good-looking young man who slowly took to a life of crime to sustain himself, transforming eventually into the monster called Akku Yadav.
The women narrate how Akku embarked on his criminal life – with petty burglaries, then extortion, soon graduating to grisly murders — and got away with it. The second episode of the three-episode Murder In A Courtroom turns grimmer, as the women begin to detail the sexual assaults – 40 documented rapes, and numerous undocumented ones. Akku Yadav’s youngest rape victim was reportedly a mere 10 years old, testifying to the monstrosity of the man.
Finally, the women relate how, when their repeated complaints to the police went unheeded, they took matters into their own hands; how they planned the lynching meticulously, and then saw it to the grisly end. The standout element of the narration is the pride that shines on the face of each woman as she owns up to being conspirator in the courtroom murder.
The best part of the series is the interviews with numerous real-life people who witnessed the entire sordid saga from close quarters. They include friends and acquaintances of Akku Yadav, even his family lawyer; the sister of a woman he murdered brutally; social activists who stood up for the women; police personnel; journalists; and of course, the women at the centre of the tale. The infuriating part is when a few of those interviewed – all men – cast doubts on the truth of the sexual assaults. Also unnerving is the impunity with which Akku Yadav was let off from jail each time he was incarcerated for a crime. The apathy of the Indian law and order system in ensuring justice for the poor is shameful, to say the least.
Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni has shot the story with a rare sensitivity. Incidents, both murders and sexual assaults, are always hinted at, never shown; thus doing away completely with the titillation aspect, a common accusation leveled against the genre at large. The starkness of the surroundings, coupled with the sharp cinematography, lends the right amount of grimness and gravitas to the storytelling – neither in-your-face, nor frivolous or artificial – both factors that marred the previous two seasons of Indian Predator.
That said, the narrative in some parts of the series does get a bit repetitive. Chopping the runtime into half could have helped to keep the series crisp and invigorating.
