Diksha Sundriyal
In its third season, Netflix’s true crime drama series ‘Delhi Crime’ brings another horrific case from India’s national capital into the spotlight. Shefali Shah returns as Vartika Chaturvedi, who leads an investigation that reveals a darker side of the criminal world. The season begins on two different notes. On the one side, Vartika is in Assam, chasing after an illegal shipment that turns out to be connected to a human trafficking ring. In the meantime, a toddler is brought into AIIMS, and her injuries suggest that she has been through terrible things. Created by Richie Mehta, the show unravels the investigation over the course of six episodes, and what makes it even more bleak and heartbreaking is that it borrows elements from a real-life case. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Noor’s Tragic Story is Based on the Real Case of Child Abuse
The third season of ‘Delhi Crime’ begins with a baby, later christened Noor, who is brought into AIIMS Trauma Center with severe injuries. Noor is based on a real two-year-old who was admitted to AIIMS on January 18, 2012, by a fifteen-year-old girl who claimed to be her mother. The baby, who was given the name Falak, had severe injuries, which included human bite marks on her body and broken bones, among other things. The girl claimed that the baby had fallen off the bed, but it was clear that Falak’s injuries were not caused by an accident, and neither was the teenager her real mother. For about two months, the doctors did their best to save Falak. During the treatment, she suffered two heart attacks and also developed meningitis. She received multiple brain surgeries, and for a while, it seemed that she would recover, especially after she was shifted from the intensive care unit to the general ward.
The hospital staff, who had grown deeply attached to her, called her the “miracle baby.” However, on March 15, 2012, Falak passed away after suffering a cardiac arrest. While the doctors tried to save the child, the cops tried to figure out who she really was and what happened to her. Reportedly, the teenager confessed that it was she who inflicted the bite marks on her out of frustration. She said that despite all her efforts, the baby would not stop crying, which led her to bite Falak. She added that when the child’s diaper needed changing, she took her to the bathroom, which is where she suffered a fall and sustained a head injury. The next day, when her condition didn’t improve, the teenager took the baby to the hospital. The young girl also confessed that she wasn’t Falak’s biological mother, but had been given the child by the people who were involved in human trafficking.
It turns out that the teenager had suffered physical abuse, which led her to flee her home. She ended up falling into the hands of the wrong people and was raped and sold before she was taken in by Rajkumar, a taxi driver from Bihar, who also abused her. After a while, they were given Baby Falak by a couple named Manoj and Pratima from Bihar. Investigation later revealed that Falak’s real name was Sania, and her mother was a 22-year-old woman named Munni, who was also a victim of human trafficking and had been sold into marriage to a man in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan. Eventually, more than ten people were arrested in connection with the case, which brought forth the dark reality of what was termed “one of the biggest sex rackets involving minors and child prostitution and sale of women for marriage.”
Delhi Crime Season 3 Adds Fictional Elements to Explore the Dark Side of Human Trafficking
While ‘Delhi Crime’ brings forth the horrific true story of child abuse and human trafficking, it fictionalises some aspects of the story to give a more expansive picture of the true scale of the crime. The show’s director, Tanuj Chopra, revealed that the team conducted extensive research to understand the story and how it should be presented on screen. Most facets of the narrative are based on the details from the real case, especially about Baby Noor’s arc and her backstory. The part about the trafficking ring is also real, but some parts of the way the investigation unfolds and certain characters who come into play are fictionalised. Chopra explained that they had to “add a lot more to the source material to make it work on the digital platform.”
This means that certain characters have a fictional edge, like the main villain, Badi Didi, and one of the victims, Sonam. Chopra revealed that for the third season, he wanted to pit Vartika against a dangerous criminal, but he also wanted the audience to see the story from the latter’s end. Expressing his love for Al Pacino and Robert De Niro’s ‘Heat,’ he said that Vartika and Badi Didi become the female versions of the Michael Mann movie. “There’s so much to play when you can get into the mind of both the criminal and the cop at the same time, as the stories are interweaving. It’s a very delicate and beautiful thing to put out,” he said, in an interview with Filmfare. This demonstrates that the creators of the Netflix series struck a balance between truth and fiction, delivering a heart-wrenching tale while highlighting a bitter truth about the world we live in.
Read More: Delhi Crime Season 3 Ending Explained: Are Meena and Vijay Dead?
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