Prosit Roy’s Raakh takes a big swing in its last episode. After tip-toeing around the crime where two teens—a brother and his sister—were murdered in broad daylight in Delhi in 1978 and the man-hunt that followed, the non-linear narrative finally depicts the day of the crime. It’s a tricky sequence, illustrating the scene of crime inside the car, where the siblings are being driven by two runaway murderers. Even though there are plenty of markers even before this sequence, it was this scene that assured me about Roy’s directorial intent and creators Anusha Nandakumar and Sandeep Saket’s authorial sensitivity behind telling the story. Such a scene could easily become lurid and sensationalise the crime. Instead Raakh remaining a clear-eyed procedural even during its most heated sequence, is testament to the crew’s great care and rigour around the show’s central conflict. 

Based on the real-life murder case that took place in the same year and became notorious, Raakh uses the crime to investigate how the widely-reported incident sapped the innocence out of a society that once was, and paved the way for the rampant mistrust we find ourselves living in. Suman and Sahil Arora (Divya and Vivaan Sharma) residents of the relatively posh Delhi Cantonment area, were on their way to the Aakashvani Bhavan for Suman’s performance. Amidst lashing rains, the siblings took a lift from an approaching Fiat Padmini. Unbeknownst to the teenagers, the men in the car were two murderers: Babu (Akash Makhija) and Rajjo (Ramandeep Yadav). 

When Suman isn’t heard on the radio, her father, Lt. Col Ashok Arora (Aamir Bashir), goes looking for them. They are nowhere to be found and Ashok and Mona (Sonali Bendre) alert the Delhi police. Sub-Inspector Jayaprakash or JP (Ali Fazal) is tasked with finding the children. After their bodies are discovered by a goat herder, the next day, the murder investigation and the hunt for Babu and Rajjo cuts between flashbacks of circumstances that led to the two criminals entering Delhi.

In an era, where........

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