Audacious crime we never heard of

With her ‘Netflix’ docu-series ‘Indian Predator: The Butcher of Delhi’, director Ayesha Sood said the aim was to chronicle the story of an invisible man who preyed on people living on the margins of society.

“What compelled me to make this docu-series was the fact that it was an invis- ible man who was preying on invisible people and therefore, the murders almost went unnoticed. I have been a student of crime around India and I was amazed that even I hadn’t heard of this story. This was such an audacious crime. It was in our backyard and yet we never heard of it,” the film- maker said.

Through the series, Sood said she also got a chance to study prevalent social structures in depth. “We need to examine our social structures, our relationships with people to understand what crime is and how it sort of manifests. Otherwise, we will ignore it. There’s enough dissection of this in the West. But I don’t think we do it enough,” she added.

Sood said she chose to present the story in a docuseries format because of the ‘absurd’ nature of the killer and his crimes, which actually felt like a chapter straight out of a movie.

“It is often said that truth is stranger than fiction. I just feel that this story is so bizarre and absurd in many ways that you have to present it in a documentary format. You will not believe it if it was done in a scripted format. It would feel like a drama.”

Sood said her takeaway from the whole experience was that she got to understand how a person is a product of their genetic and environmental influences.