Indian Predator: Murder in a Courtroom, a must-watch for true crime fans

True crime is a crowded genre these days, whether we’re talking about documentaries or scripted features. The sheer volume means that every new entrant has to try and distinguish itself from the herd. To that end, Indian Predator: Murder in a Courtroom has an ace up its sleeve right from the beginning. Have you ever seen a true crime documentary where a co-accused in the titular ‘murder in a courtroom’ is sitting calmly in his own house, describing the long-simmering plan to carry out said murder? That’s exactly what Murder in a Courtroom delivers and perhaps even more remarkably, you’ll be rooting for this man and the hordes of women who carried out a grisly murder in the proverbial broad daylight in Nagpur on August 13 2004.

That was the day when Bharat Kalicharan aka Akku Yadav, a 32-year-old gangster and extortionist, wanted for at least three murders and over 40 rapes, was killed by a group of hundreds of women, mostly from Kasturba Nagar, the Nagpur neighbourhood he terrorised for several years. Yadav was stabbed over 70 times and bludgeoned with stones, rods and other weapons. The case drew national headlines and even some attention from the international press. The police and local authorities, who had turned a blind eye to Akku’s crimes while he was alive, were embarrassed on a national scale and eventually, the women accused of Akku’s murder (who received bipartisan public support, not to mention letters of endorsement from the Women’s Commission, NGOs and retired civil servants) were acquitted due to lack of evidence.

Murder in a Courtroom does an admirable job of telling this disturbing and often difficult-to-watch story, through a mixture of solid, old-fashioned documentary filmmaking and cleverly shot re-enaction sequences that eschew sensationalism for the kind of well-framed close-up shots you’d see in psychological horror films.

Akku Yadav: Real vs reel

This is at least the third time filmmakers have depicted Akku Yadav’s crimes and subsequent murder. There were two fictional depictions before Murder in a Courtroom happened. In 2015, NVB Choudary’s Telugu film Keechaka presented an over-the-top, blood-soaked version of events, framed as a rape-revenge drama. The title of the film refers to a Mahabharata character, an immensely strong military commander who harasses Draupadi—and is killed by Bhima for his troubles. Keechaka chose to view the backstory of Kasturba Nagar mostly as window dressing, before the bloodletting of the climax could begin; a poorly made exploitation movie, in the final equation.

Last year, Zee5 released Sarthak Dasgupta and Alok Batra’s 200 Halla Ho, another fictional depiction of events, albeit this time much more faithful to the journalistic accounts. Veteran actor and filmmaker Amol Palekar played a judge who sympathizes with the women at philosophical and pragmatic levels, despite his sworn allegiance to the law. YouTuber and former radio jockey Sahil Khattar played Balli Choudhary, the Akku Yadav analogue. Despite its good intentions, 200 Halla Ho also failed as a work of drama because it paid a little too much attention to the pathos and the philosophizing after the act itself, sacrificing its narrative momentum while doing so.

Murder in a Courtroom, however, falls in no such traps. Across three episodes of 50-odd minutes each, the narrative moves confidently back and forth in time. The two major threads—the rise of Akku Yadav’s reign of terror (especially his penchant for rape as punishment for speaking out) in Kasturba Nagar, and the national reaction to his murder—both develop simultaneously. So in one scene, you’ll see newspaper clippings and TV news clips in the immediate aftermath of Akku’s murder, and in the very next one you’ll see an expertly shot re-enaction scene depicting yet another horrific crime committed by Akku.

On the latter—there are many, and each more gut-wrenching than the other. Akku kills a woman in front of hundreds of people (including her daughter) and then proceeds to cut off her breasts and mutilate her limbs, just to send a message. He rapes newlyweds, teenagers, middle-aged women, without remorse or fear of reprisal. Policemen come and arrest him every now and then, but he is served samosas and alcohol behind bars, thanks to the bribes Akku is rumoured to pay.

There are two key aspects to Akku’s criminal career that Murder in a Courtroom highlights very effectively. First is the total complicity of police, judiciary and other local authorities. Policemen would laugh off Akku’s rape victims, in the rare case that they even summoned the courage to file a complaint. One woman and her husband were abused by local cops; the husband was told that his wife must surely be sleeping with Akku by choice.

The other crucial aspect—and this is where Murder in a Courtroom deserves some credit—is the question of caste. The women Akku raped, and indeed, most of the families he terrorised in Kasturba Nagar, were Dalit. As the researcher, journalist and activist Cynthia Stephen explains during the second episode, it was no coincidence that Akku’s crimes were largely ignored by the (upper-caste dominated) police.

One of Akku’s friends, who is interviewed in all of the episodes, quickly claims that Akku was “not smart enough to be casteist” (whatever that means). But he also claims that on the one occasion Akku killed one of his own friends, he immediately regretted it since the deceased “was a Brahmin boy”. This shows the insidiousness and the hypocrisy of caste; even the ‘not-smart-enough’ Akku knows, at some level, that there is a hierarchy of human life that is supposed to adhere to, no questions asked. 

The Virangana trope in Kasturba Nagar

One of the great things about Murder in a Courtroom is that it emphasizes the ordinariness of the people of Kasturba Nagar, thereby making it clear that this is not a ‘heroic narrative’. I feel like this is an important distinction to make because this is precisely where the previous, fictional depictions of the Akku Yadav case failed—for both Keechak and 200 Halla Ho, the women of Kasturba Nagar existed as two poles; as helpless victims or all-powerful avengers. The latter is in line with the ‘virangana’ (the feminine form of ‘vir’ which means ‘brave or valorous’) trope in both folk theatre traditions across North and Central India, as well as Bollywood’s earliest decades which drew upon said traditions in a big way. Think of Fearless Nadia movies, or the quasi-mythological silent films made about the likes of Rani Lakshmi Bai and Ahilyabai Holkar.

In her 1988 essay ‘The Virangana in North Indian History: Myth and Popular Culture’, Kathryn Hansen writes about the influence of the virangana trope in various strands of Indian pop culture, including but not limited to Bollywood depictions.

“Between the polarities of self-effacing wife and all-powerful mother lies an overlooked and yet important alternative paradigm of Indian womanhood: the virangana, the woman who manifests the qualities of virya or heroism. The virangana seems to be a paradox within the normative categories for gender in high-caste north Indian society.

She is a valiant fighter who distinguishes herself by prowess in warfare, an activity normally reserved for men. She demonstrates her martial skills and courage by direct participation in combat, at the risk of her life (…)”

Crucially, Hansen uses the example of Phoolan Devi’s life to make her point about the limiting nature of the virangana trope—as well as its interconnectedness with questions of caste. Like the women of Kasturba Nagar, Phoolan Devi was raped by upper-caste men. In popular depictions (remarkably, this essay was written several years before Shekhar Kapur’s film Bandit Queen), Phoolan’s life ends up being reduced to the simple cause-and-effect rationality of her rape and subsequent bloody revenge.

“The central theme of Phoolan’s life, as interpreted to popular opinion, is one of repeated victimisation, particularly sexual assault by men, leading eventually to resistance and counter-attack upon the perpetrators. Phoolan was robbed and looted of her chastity (‘to rape’ in Hindi is izzat lutna, ‘to steal one’s honour’), and so she turns to robbing and looting in return. Her struggle has much to do with the oppressive caste system of rural north India. As a low-caste woman, she was raped many times by high-caste men, and it is towards them that she directs her avenging fury.”

Indian Predator: Murder in a Courtroom takes the sober documentarian’s approach, far away from the polarising narratives Hansen and others have written about. Much like its predecessors in the Indian Predator series, this is a docu-series that defines its narrative goals clearly and concisely—and then sets about achieving them with both style and humility. This is a must-watch for true crime fans.

Advocate Vilas Bhande (co-accused in the Akku Yadav murder, Usha Narayane’s brother-in-law)

V. Chandra (trade union and women’s rights activist, fact finding committee member)

Gendlal Srivastava

Ritesh Borkar (journalist and former Kasturba Nagar resident)

“Virangana Mahilaaon Ko Riha Karo”

Aditya Mani Jha is a Delhi-based independent writer and journalist, currently working on a book of essays on Indian comics and graphic novels.

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