Delhi Crime Season 3 is a powerful attack on the veiled and disguised techniques adopted in the business of girl trafficking, shedding light on hitherto unexplored channels of the trafficking industry. It begins with the scene of a mass marriage conducted between teenaged girls and middle-aged men as a channel for the girls ultimately ‘exported’ to foreign countries in South Asia like Bangkok and Singapore never to return. The girls, from very impoverished families in small towns realise the trickery they have been trapped in but it is a one-way ticket and all exit doors are locked forever.

This time, the subject chosen maps such a wide horizon that the “Delhi” in the title becomes almost a misnomer as the narrative towards the exposure and arrest of the men and women involved in the huge trafficking ‘industry’ are spread right across the country spanning Haryana, Assam, Rohtak and so on coming back to Delhi again and again as the special team is based in Delhi.

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The chief agent in India is Meena aka Badi Didi (a very heavily made-up Huma Quereshi) who runs a girl trafficking business, specialising in young, underage girls. She has another sub-agent named Kalyani (Mita Vashisht) who, however, is killed in cold blood when the Delhi police capture her to be present in a court case.

The settings keep changing, from Rohtak, Assam, Muzaffarpur, Surat, Mumbai and more, even a detour to Thailand but the case is handled by the Delhi team comprised of the very strong and courageous, DCP Vartika Chaturvedi, played by Shefali Shah who struggles with her college-going daughter’s questioning of the ethnics of her job and occasionally, with her otherwise understanding husband and most importantly, her juggling with time management between home and work which demands constant mobility on the job.

The pacing of the film as the main characters move along often appears electrically charged with strong emotions coloured by the ‘training’ the girls are compulsorily made to by another young girl undergo such as putting on make-up, walking, posturing, wearing and carrying skimpy outfits and surrendering to all sexual demands made on them. Meera is given a sad back story which does not sound plausible at all and weakens the fabric of her character as well as the script. When almost captured by the Delhi Police team, she asks the DCP, “Will you be able to stop trafficking by arresting me?” which is a rhetorical question that does not beg an answer.

According to a 2009 Report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the most common form of human trafficking (79%) is sexual exploitation. The victims of sexual exploitation are predominantly women and girls. Surprisingly, in 30% of the countries which provided information on the gender of traffickers, women make up the largest proportion of traffickers. In some parts of the world, women trafficking women is the norm. The second most common form of human trafficking is forced labour (18%), although this may be a misrepresentation because forced labour is less frequently detected and reported than trafficking for sexual exploitation. Worldwide, almost 20% of all trafficking victims are children. However, in some parts of Africa and the Mekong region, children are the majority (up to 100% in parts of West Africa). Though trafficking seems to imply people moving across continents, most exploitation takes place close to home. Data show intra-regional and domestic trafficking are the major forms of trafficking in persons.

What is trafficking? What is trafficked, by whom, where and how? Are the victims aware that they are being trafficked? What kind of role does the family play? Does it play a conducive role in favour of their girls being trafficked? Or does it play a positive and reassuring role in the rehabilitation of the girls when and if they come back home? What are the reasons that lead to trafficking? It is poverty or is it easy money? Is it ignorance – true or pretended, or is it greed? Does it result from lack of education and any earning skills? These are some of the questions Delhi Crime 3 raises.

The personal stories of a couple of the girls are touching and tackled minus melodrama. The low-key music gets juxtaposed heavily against the sounds of torture, physical pain and the sense of hopelessness in the young girl looking out for her little baby she was forced to part with. The climactic chase of the DCP searching for the girls about to be shipped to a land of no return shot in some Navi Mumbai workshed which houses dozens of empty wagons the girls are transported in.These scenes of hunting for the hidden girls and hiding one of them who tries to escape plus one who is seriously ill makes for an electrifying climax which however, is hardly the end of the story. However, there are just too many scenes of blood and gore, almost like an action-centric commercial thriller but the brisk editing, the wonderful performances stripped completely of dramatics makes the series worth watching.

Legally, the right against exploitation is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution of India under Article 23, traffic in human beings, "beggar" and other similar forms of forced labour are prohibited and any contravention of this provision shall be an offence punishable in accordance with the law, Article 39 specifically obligates the State to protect children from exploitation. The provisions of both of these articles have been incorporated into the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act, 1956 (SITA) and the Immoral Traffic in Persons (Prevention) Act of 1986 (ITPA), an amendment to SITA. ITPA supplemented by the Indian Penal Code (IPC) prohibits trafficking in human beings including children and lays down severe penalties. The Juvenile Justice Act, 1986 provides for care, protection, treatment and rehabilitation of neglected and delinquent juveniles including girls. The enforcement of ITPA, IPC and the Juvenile Justice Act is the responsibility of the State Government.

The weakest quality of Delhi Crime Season 3 is its underlining the message that no one in the entire Delhi police force is corrupt. Otherwise, Delhi Crime 3 which is not getting very positive reviews happens to give the audience a well-choreographed ring-side view of trafficking across Indian states. The narrative is centered on the trafficking of young girls drawn out of their poverty-stricken families with the ‘temptation’ of well-paid jobs but who are actually sold to prostitution right across the country and beyond. For the poor girls, there is no turning back even when they realise that they will never be able to get back because the exit gate is locked forever and the key has been thrown away.

In this age of the globalization of crime such as interstate and inter-country smuggling in drugs, arms and ammunition, victims of trafficking are coerced into criminal activities like smuggling of drugs and arms, sex tourism and working as conduits and couriers within criminal and mafia circles. Natural calamities like famine, drought and floods, man-made calamities like communal riots and ethnic strife render poor families more vulnerable than they already are. Ultimately, they try to get rid of a feeding mouth if it is a daughter and sell her off to a trafficker. Good money and a luxurious lifestyle are traps the girls do not wish to get out of after a point of time. But in Delhi Crime 3, none of the girls are willing to be traded off like cattle.

© Mathrubhumi English