Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Delhi Crime’ returns with its third season, bringing DIG Vartika Chaturvedi at the helm of another high-stakes investigation. At the end of the last season, Vartika’s drive to solve the crime led to the display of her insubordination, which further landed her a transfer away from Delhi. At the beginning of this season, we find her fulfilling her duties and chasing a new case in Assam. Once again, she finds herself at the precipice of a case that involves the lives of many innocent young girls, and saving them takes her back to the chaos and crime of Delhi. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Delhi Crime Season 3 Plot Synopsis
Following her transfer from Delhi, Vartika Chaturvedi is in Assam. She and her team wait for a truck to pass through a checkpoint, believing that it is carrying weapons. However, the truck they end up stopping is revealed to have a bunch of girls who were being illegally transported out of state and would eventually be sold, if they weren’t found. Vartika discovers that the truck was supposed to go to Delhi, and the girls inside it came from all over the North East. It turns out that all these girls were taken away from their homes under the guise of getting them a job, and once they were gone, no one thought about looking for them. There is one girl, named Sonam, whose missing person report was filed by her grandmother. Vartika, despite initially not getting support from her superior, decides to go to Delhi to pursue the lead.
Meanwhile, a wounded two-year-old is brought into AIIMS hospital by a young woman. The child has severe injuries, and Neeti Singh and her team start looking into the woman who brought her in. Their search leads them to a couple, Rahul and Khushi, with the latter being the one who brought the baby, named Noor, to the hospital. Clearly, they are not the baby’s parents, especially since Khushi is still a teenager. The case is revealed to be tied up with Vartika’s case, which brings the whole team back together. Soon, they realise that the person they are looking for is a woman named Badi Didi who operates out of Rohtak, Haryana. She is a human trafficker who buys girls from another woman, named Kalyani, and then sells them to different people. Some girls are sold to the local families, where they are married against their will. The others are sold to other clients, most prominent of whom is John, a man operating in Thailand.
Is Sonam Found? Are the Girls Saved?
Vartika’s investigation is aimed at finding Sonam, the girl who was taken from her home under the impression that she would get a job in Delhi. She was in the truck full of girls that left Assam days before Vartika and her team stopped another truck at the checkpoint. While the cops piece everything together, Sonam also becomes aware of her situation. It doesn’t take her much to realise that the promise of a job was a lie, and now she is stuck amongst dangerous criminals. She tries to defy Badi Didi, aka Meena, but there is only so much she can do. As the cops start getting closer, Meena moves the girls away from Rohtak until they land in Mumbai. The criminal plans to put all the girls in a shipping container, which John’s people will then pick up. To make matters worse, John develops a particular liking for Sonam, and Meena, who is struggling to keep the deal alive, offers the girl to John for free, in an attempt to make amends. Meanwhile, the cops get their hands on Meena’s collaborator Vijay’s phone.
They know that Meena will call it eventually, and they use it to track down her location. After some setbacks, the plan eventually works as the location is traced in the nick of time. By the time the cops arrive at the docks, Meena and her people have already loaded all the girls, who were rendered unconscious by getting them a pill, into a shipping container. Sonam, however, is not amongst them. In a clever move, when she is given the pill, she doesn’t swallow it. This allows her to stay awake, and the moment she finds an opening, she makes a quick escape. When Sonam escapes and hides, the time constraint doesn’t allow Meena and her men to chase her for long. This allows her to hide away in another container, hoping help arrives soon. Luckily for her, Vartika and her team, accompanied by the Mumbai police, arrive just in time. They swarm the docks, but the problem is that it’s too much area to cover. The team splits up, and eventually, it is Vartika and Neeti who find Sonam, hiding in one of the containers.
Vartika tells her that her grandma is looking for her, and with that, Sonam realises that she is finally safe. While Sonam is saved, several more girls are still out there, so the search continues. The problem is that there are too many containers and too little time. The docks don’t have any screening process either, so the girls could be trapped in any one of the many containers. This is where Sonam comes through again. Earlier in the day, she’d come out to help one of the girls in the loo. During this time, she noticed the number of the container that Meena’s men were working on. She noticed that all the digits were prime numbers, and being a bright young girl, she remembered the number. When she sees Vartika and her team struggling to find the girls, she tells them the number. Once the cops search for that container, they find all the girls, still alive, inside it, which is a huge win for them. Everyone is relieved that the girls are found, but that doesn’t mean the case is closed yet.
Do Meena and Vijay Die?
As Vartika and her team try to piece together the case, starting from the missing girls and Baby Noor’s true identity, they realize that all roads lead to Meena, aka Badi Didi. She is a major point in the sale of the girls, and catching him will allow them to curb the problem to a great extent. The investigation eventually leads to Rohtak, forcing Meena and her right-hand man, Vijay, to flee the city. They become increasingly desperate with each hour because they must retrieve the girls they promised to John, while also ensuring that they repay one of their suppliers. Due to the investigation, a lot of things get stuck, including the girls and the money, which puts Meena in a very tough spot.
A pit stop in Surat ends up much bloodier than planned, and the trail of blood gets the cop to their doorstep. As Meena flees with the girls to Mumbai, Vijay sticks back to stop the cops. He gets shot in the shoulder, but ends up escaping, though his phone slips and is found by the cops. Through Vijay’s phone, the cops track Meena to Mumbai, from where the plan is to give over the girls to John. About one hour before the pick up, the cops show up at the docks, which forces Meena and her men to flee. With the cops surrounding the place from all sides, they have no way to flee. One of Meena’s attempts to leave the dock leads to gunfire, where her remaining two goons die, and she is forced back inside the docks.
She tries to run and hide, but is found by Vartika, who holds her at gunpoint. Here, Meena spills her backstory, revealing how her own family members had tried to kill her since the day she was born. She tries to use it as justification for her actions, claiming that she helped a lot of people get married and have families, but Vartika points out that it doesn’t excuse her crimes against all the girls she sold as cattle. Before Vartika can take her in, Vijay shows up and shoots her. This gives the criminal duo a window to run, but the rest of the team shows up, leading Vijay to be shot and killed on the scene. Meena tries to fight back, but she is shot dead by Vartika. With both of them killed and all the girls saved, the case is finally, officially closed.
What Happens to Khushi?
Since the beginning of the season, Khushi remains an important link in the story. She is the one who brings Baby Noor to the hospital, in the hopes that the baby will receive the help she needs. In a way, she tries to help Noor, though one cannot forget that it was she who led to Noor’s traumatic situation. As the cops start looking for her and Rahul, she decides to stay, even though it leads to her arrest. It becomes clear that while Noor is not her biological daughter, Khushi cares about her, even though she is the one behind the baby’s injuries. She feels deeply guilty of it, and she is ready to face the consequences, even if it means going to prison. However, since she is revealed to be a 14-year-old girl who was also sold into sex work, the law is lenient with her. After her arrest, she is sent to stay with an NGO, where several other girls her age are also being kept. Khushi’s guilt worsens as the girls banish her from their company. On the way, she is heckled by two girls, who say some very bad things about her.
Most other people see her as a monster, but Vartika knows that the girl has been through hell of her own. She was never in a position to care for a child, and while what happened with Noor was horrific and tragic, Khushi already has her demons to battle. Two months after the case is resolved, Khushi is brought before a judge. Her lawyer wants her sentence to be lenient, given her circumstances, and since Vartika appears at the hearing, it seems that she agrees with the lawyer. Khushi, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be going any easier on herself. She doesn’t think she deserves any leniency and remains quiet throughout the process, tears welling up in her eyes. Given the circumstances of her situation, the judge decides to grant her a lighter sentence. It is revealed that Khushi will be allowed to join a center where she can learn to live and mingle with the community. It is a second chance for her to piece her life back together, and while everyone is happy about this decision, Khushi isn’t.
When the judge and the lawyer depart, Khushi wonders what Vartika and the others see in her that makes them so sympathetic towards her. Knowing that the guilt is weighing heavily on her, Vartika tells her that she sees hope when she looks at her. Her words make it clear that she doesn’t see Khushi as some monster responsible for an unforgivable crime. Instead, she sees a young girl who has been dealt a terrible hand in life and tries to make the most of her circumstances. She did some bad things, but she isn’t evil, and the lighter sentence is a chance for her to try to move on from the case and build a new life for herself, which is important since she is only fourteen and has her whole life ahead of her. In the midst of her guilt, she must realise that she, too, is a victim and has been through enough horrible things to last a lifetime. Now, Vartika wants her to try to leave that in the past and use the opportunity to be the woman she deserves to be and live the life she deserves.
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