Drawing on the 2012 Baby Falak case, Season 3 of the Emmy Award-winning series follows DCP Vartika Chaturvedi and the Delhi Police team as they chase an inter-state women trafficking network
With the resolute, capable DCP Vartika Chaturvedi at the helm, the new season of the Emmy Award-winning Delhi Crime series, currently streaming on Netflix, journeys out of the capital and into a larger, more complex canvas to bust an inter-state women-trafficking racket.
These women, lured from their homes in poorer states with the promise of jobs and a better life, are sold to private buyers and exploited for sex or as brides expected to produce sons. They are, in effect, simply not missed. “No one misses these missing girls,” Vartika (Shefali Shah) reflects early in the series, while recounting the horror of seeing severely abused young girls during a brothel raid.
Truly, the story of shadowy operators transporting helpless girls in large containers with impunity across state lines needs to be told in every possible form. And Vartika makes it clear to her fellow police officers, as they embark on the investigation, that this is a “very serious crime and the fight has to be personal for all of us.”
To drive home the enormity of the crime, the orchestrator of the trafficking, Badi Didi or Meena (played by Huma Qureshi), mocks Vartika in the climax for rescuing “just 30 girls” in this dark, bottomless world, pointing out that ten more would very easily replace them.
Draws on Baby Falak case
There are enough young girls in the country who are sold by their own families, abandoned by men they love, or fall prey to agents who promise to lift them out of poverty, the show reminds us. However, while Season 3 takes on this grave subject head-on — though it’s worth asking whether the makers have done adequate homework on this deeply embedded network — it sometimes moves at a glacial pace, clearly at odds with its genre.
Season 3 draws on the infamous and horrific 2012 Baby Falak case to kick off the battle with the traffickers. The nation was shaken when a severely injured infant was brought to AIIMS with a fractured skull, broken arms, and human bite marks. The police probe eventually unearthed a human-trafficking operation and revealed that the 15-year-old girl who had harmed the baby had herself been sold by her father and passed around and abused by multiple men.
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In the series, Neeti Singh (Rasika Dugal), along with the capable and familiar Delhi Crime police team, is tasked with following the trail of traffickers after the injured baby incident. Meanwhile, Vartika — posted in Assam as punishment — stumbles upon a container full of girls in rainy Silchar being taken to Delhi to be sold. She quickly embarks on an interstate investigation, joining Neeti, Bhupinder Singh (Rajesh Tailang), and Vimla Bhardwaj (Jaya Bhattacharya) in a race to save a group of 30 girls who are being moved through godowns in Haryana, Gujarat, and Mumbai, before being shipped out to Bangkok.
There isn’t much family time this season, aside from a tearful parting between the divorced couple, Neeti and her husband. Vartika, too, gets a scolding from her husband (Denzil Smith) for not keeping her seniors informed.
Gripping, with multiple strands
Huma Qureshi plays the scheming, cruel Meena, a woman of some social standing in Rohtak and the key player in organising girls for buyers, including John Gupta (Kelly Dorji). Meena is written almost like an over-the-top Bond villain, designed to give you the chills. She gets trigger-happy whenever she’s crossed and, in true Wasseypur style, pulls out a gun and kills without a qualm. She has no empathetic bone in her body, and even her endearment “darrlingg” lands like a sneer.
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Qureshi plays the role with relish, giving Meena an uneasy, cruel edge. She seems to wield real power over her underlings, Sayani Gupta and Mita Vashisht, both of whom appear reasonably terrified of her unpredictable nature. Vashist delivers a robust performance, especially in her face-off with the tough, unblinking Vartika at the police station.
The third season is gripping, with Vartika and her Delhi team firmly at the wheel as they close in on the traffickers. The multiple strands come together well enough to keep you engaged despite some flaws. Shefali Shah maintains an iron-clad grip on her character, never letting up on her hard-nosed, sharp-cop act, intent solely on capturing the criminals. Her empathetic side shines more through this season as she grapples with the cruelties inflicted on teenage girls.
There are frequent close-ups of characters, and Shah’s expressive face absorbs every painful twitch. One does wonder, though, why director Tanuj Chopra relies so heavily on tight close-ups of his main characters? There is simply no let-up. Still, in the end, it’s the members of the Delhi Crime police team who stay the course and bring a strong sense of purpose to the chase, making you want to run with them.
