Indian Predator The Diary of a Serial Killer is a True Crime Documentary series, released on Netflix on 7th September 2022. It is an India Today Originals Production which is released in succession to the previous documentary series about the Butcher of Delhi. There are 3 episodes in total with a runtime of about 37-45 minutes.
The series is directed by Dheeraj Jindal, and the script is written by Sudeep Nigam with creative producer Moumita Sen and executive producer Chandni Ahlawat Dabas. It investigates the case of a young, well-loved journalist who goes missing in Allahabad, and in the process, they find an unlikely suspect — a small-time local politician’s husband and 13 other victims.
-Indian Predator The Diary of a Serial Killer Review Contain Some Spoilers-
The series starts with news clips of a body being found whose head and genitals are missing. Then we are introduced to the family of the missing journalist Dheerendra Singh. His brother tells us how he had taken leave for a day from his office to visit his pregnant wife in the village of Bairi, but even after 4 days, he didn’t return.
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Dheerendra took off on 14 December 2000, after telling his relative uncle if he wants any message to be delivered to the village, but even after a day he didn’t make it home and when the relative came looking for him, the family realised that something wrong must have happened to him.
From then on they start searching for him and by looking at Dheerendra’s phone call records, they reached Phoolan Devi, her husband Raja Kolander aka Ram Niranjan and his brother-in-law Vakshraj. A known journalist gone missing was a big thing in the village and also the reason that police investigated the cases with full focus.
While police claim that Ram Niranjan and his brother-in-law Vakshraj confessed to his murder, meanwhile the killer refutes it and along with his family is convinced that he’s innocent. But how were the police able to trace Dheerendra’s head and clothes if the killer didn’t tell them where he put those things?
Ram Niranjan is said to be a grade 4 employee at COD Chheoki and also owned a pig farm. His wife Phoolan Devi was a member of the local panchayat. But he used to call himself Raja Kolander and even changed his wife’s name from Gomati Devi to Phoolan Devi, as it exudes more power and was already a strong public figure.
The pig farm plays a big role in the story as this is the place where they killed Dheerendra and two more skulls were found. Also, the diary containing 14 names was discovered here while looking for the revolver which was used to kill the journalist. The main reason explained in the documentary for killing Dheerendra is that he was onto Raja because apparently, he had stolen the vehicle, he used to drive.
It is told that while coming back from a family event Raja and his family hired a Tata Sumo to drop them home but Raja killed the two drivers and used the car as his own. The car owner was looking for the drivers and the car and Dheerendra might have questioned Raja about it, thus he became a target, or else Raja’s secret would have been exposed.
Summing Up: Indian Predator The Diary of a Serial Killer
The documentary is more like a commentary by the people who were involved in the case, from police officers to journalists and family members. They explore various aspects, like him being a cannibal and eating his victims’ brains to increase his mental power, while Raja’s children refute such claims and call him a nice man who cared for his family.
I expected the documentary to be more investigative and try to find out the things in the case which could have been overlooked or not known. It is said that the 14 names in the diary were all of dead people/victims, but briefly says in between that some of them were alive. The series doesn’t even show all the names or check if anyone from the list is alive.
The interviewing subjects look like reading from a script or telling based on their assumptions, instead of proof. The killer is only convicted of Dheerendra Singh and Tata Sumo’s double murder, and his cannibalism was never proved. But what about other skulls found on his pig farm and the victims that the police officer tells us about? Who are they?
The creators even had the chance to talk with the killer himself, but they asked him such insignificant things instead of coming to the point or at least letting him tell his version of the story, however, true or false that might be. They had a sensational case at their hand but they made it into some breaking news segment where they reveal so little information and keep on flashing the same visual repeatedly.
Indian Predator The Diary of a Serial Killer is currently streaming on Netflix.
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A chilling killer…the blook in his eye is like Ted Bundys…just pure fucking evil…what a chilling documentary