This article questions whether Delhi Crime Season 2 is based on a true story and contains major spoilers.
READ: Our spoiler-free review.
READ: Our explanation of the season’s ending.
One of the most noteworthy aspects of the award-winning first season of Netflix’s Delhi Crime is that it was based on a true story – that of the infamous 2012 Nirbhaya Gang Rape case. While the second season isn’t as direct a representation of reality as that, it is nonetheless heavily inspired by real events and history, especially the notorious Kachcha Baniyan gangs.
So, here’s the question:
Is Delhi Crime Season 2 based on a true story?
And the answer is yes, kind of.
At first blush, the quadruple murder that kicks off the season’s plot does seem to have been committed by the Kachcha Baniyan gangs. These are real-life gangs still active today, well-known for attacking, robbing, and sometimes killing homeowners in their underwear, sometimes using oil or mud to obscure their identities and make themselves more difficult to wrangle. In the show, the gang hasn’t been active in Delhi since the 90s, but the crime has all the hallmarks.
As it turns out, this is exactly the intention of the copycat killers who are using the reputation of the gangs to stoke public terror and give themselves a clear getaway. But there are even some parallels there. Whereas gang members often disguise themselves as beggars or labourers to monitor their potential targets, the ringleader of the group here used her position as a beautician in a parlour to figure out who were most vulnerable to robberies.
So, this season of the show is really using reality to inform a new story rather than dramatizing a case directly. But the show’s depiction and explanation of the Kachcha Baniyan gangs seems to be very accurate, and the cultural context they exist within is recognisable, as is public perception of the gangs and the prejudice towards those of Denotified Tribes, or DNTs.
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