Indian Predator Murder in a Courtroom is a True Crime Documentary series, released on Netflix on 28th October 2022. It is a Vice Studios Originals Production which is released in succession to the previous documentary series about the Butcher of Delhi and The Diary of a Serial Killer. There are 3 episodes in total with a runtime of about 53-58 minutes.
The series is written and directed by Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni, produced by Vishal Jain and executive producers Samira Kanwar, Ashwin Rai Shetty, Vatsala Aron and Niharika Kotwal. The series will tell the court lynching case of Akku Yadav, a renowned gangster and rapist who committed atrocious crimes with his gang members in Kasturba Nagar for almost 13 years.
-Indian Predator Murder in a Courtroom Review Contain Some Spoilers-
A criminal, Akku Yadav, was shockingly lynched in the middle of a packed courtroom by a group of women who claimed to be his victims. What was the truth behind this killing? Who was the real killer – the women, or Akku?
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The series starts off with a song, whose lyrics urge people to rise and take the wheel in their hands, in order to get justice. We see dramatised scenes of the women packing red chilli powder, to taking out knives and getting ready to go out. They all reach the court and wait for their target to come and the mob of at least 40-50 people charging on the man, leaving him dead in the courtroom.
This event took place on 13th August 2004 and the alleged killers seem to cheer for their vengeance and tell the camera, how they all had a feast on hearing the news of Akku Yadav’s death. Born as Bharat Kalicharan in the early 1970s, Akku Yadav grew up around the Kasturba Nagar slum that lay on the outskirts of Nagpur.
A normal child of the neighbourhood, Akku had graduated from milkman’s son to local menace after his father’s death. The man who is tagged as friendly, and good at studying, grew up into a demon who was ravaged by his oppressed victims. The people who were part of the lynching mob and the residents of the slum, tells us their harrowing experience and how they reached to the point of killing someone.
From what we can infer from the testimonies is that Akku started off with small crimes like theft, gambling etc and got arrested for some crimes. But he would come back even more sinister every time and deemed himself to be a gangster, who can do anything, to the point of completely harassing and ruling over his community.
From looting people in front of their faces to raping any woman in the community, he became a true menace. Moreover, he would threaten to kill anyone, who complained against him and people had even witnessed him kill people before, which terrorised them even more from taking any action.
Yadav and his gang committed crimes like rape, murder, home invasion, and extortion in Kasturba Nagar for 13 years until his death. He murdered at least three individuals and raped over 40 women and girls. He had been arrested nearly 14 times by the Nagpur Police. But as stated in the documentary, the jail was like a hostel for him, where even the police officers were his friends.
Summing Up: Indian Predator Murder in a Courtroom
The documentary series shows how the authorities neglected allegations against Yadav regarding the exploitation of women and other crimes. When the community found themselves completely helpless, they took justice into their hands and served it cold. It was disheartening to see a few individuals disregarding the claims of the community and trying to make it a political conspiracy.
Some completely deny the allegations of sexual exploitation by Yadav, when there are so many people who tell some horrifying experiences, whose pain still lingers in their minds and memories. The series asks questions about mob violence and if it’s justified to take the verdict into their own hand.
But this case clearly indicates the fault in the system and the authorities who refused to help the poor victims, who endlessly tried to seek help but were directly ignored. They might have taken the revenge brutally but the pain they had to suffer for years still haunts them and the ostracisation of the whole community after the incident affected their financial and mental well-being even more.
Indian Predator Murder in a Courtroom is currently streaming on Netflix.
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