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Cast: Huma Qureshi, Shefali Shah, Rasika Duggal, Yukti Thareja, Rajesh Tailang, and others
Creator: Richie Mehta
Director: Tanuj Chopra
Streaming On: Netflix
Language: Hindi
Runtime: 6 episodes of 50 minutes each
Many years ago, I heard a song that hit me hard – it was from Aishwarya Rai’s Umraao Jaan and the verses said, “Jo ab kiye ho daata, aisa naa keejo, Agle janam mohe bitiya naa keejo.” The film traced the story of a little girl who landed up in a Kotha. Another verse from the song said, “Aisi bidaai bolo dekhi kahin hai, Maiyya na baabul bhaiya, kauno nahi. Ro bhi naa paavein, aisi gudiya naa keejo!” Shefali Shah and Huma Qureshi‘s web series, Delhi Crime season 3, is an elaborate thesis and dissection of this one song. Before you watch it, let me warn you that this is so unsettling that if you deal with trauma as a woman in this world ruled by patriarchy, please skip this, because it will trigger you and leave you breathless!
Delhi Crime Season 3 Review: What’s It About:
If you have seen the trailer of the web series, the premise is very well set up – the show deals with the trafficking of young girls and their mastermind, Badi Didi, played by Huma Qureshi. Meanwhile, Shefali Shah is back in Delhi, tracing the case of these missing girls as DCP Vartika Chaturvedi.
Based on real-life crimes, this time Delhi Crime S3 tries to dive into the brutal case of Baby Falak – a child who was abandoned by her mother at the trauma center of AIIMS, in Delhi, in 2012. The child was bruised beyond imagination, and initially, what was projected as an accident turned out to be a case of human trafficking. The show focuses on the selling and trafficking of women for sexual services and for using them to give birth to sons, in a state that has the highest rate for female infanticide and which craves for sons as assets!
Delhi Crime Season 3 Review: What Works:
Let me be honest, created by Richie Mehta, this is a social commentary that is supposed to tear you up and make you numb! It is disturbing to the core and it takes heart to watch a 2-year-old bruised beyond imagination fighting for life on a hospital bed. The shots are unsettling! This season of the web series deals with a subject so corrosive and heartbreaking that, as an audience, you need a moment of silence after every episode.
While the first two seasons of the web series try to crack and present a different crime, the third season adds a thick layer of emotional toxicity that feels personal. The series is built around the investigation into a complex network of trafficking that operates with terrifying efficiency, from Assam to Delhi. What makes this season devastating is the social commentary it delivers: the perpetrators are often women who have themselves been victimized.
This reveals a profound truth about trauma and power. When marginalized women are given a sliver of control, they often internalize the system of abuse they escaped, becoming exploiters themselves. In a world channeled by patriarchy, this theme of women trapping women is the series’ sharpest and most gut-wrenching aspect.
Delhi Crime Season 3 Review: Star Performance:
Vartika Chaturvedi, as Shefali Shah portrays her, is one of the last few good women standing in a broken system. Her arc this season is not about ambition; it’s about moral fatigue, while she tries to balance between her professional and personal relationships.
Huma Qureshi’s antagonist, Badi Didi, runs the operation and wins as she makes sure that you hate her and do not ache for her sufferings, which turned her into this morally broken woman selling women like objects! Dealing with numbers in dialogues like 40 ladkiyan pahuncha denge!
The supporting cast, particularly Rajesh Tailang, Jaya Bhattacharya, Rasika Duggal, and Yukti Thareja, along with Sayani Gupta, hold this investigation very strongly!
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Delhi Crime Season 3 Review: What Doesn’t Work:
We often say in a very frivolous manner, ‘Aurat hi aurat ki dushman hoti hai.’ But when you see the extent to which it goes to pushing women to an unending, abusive life, it is an emotional betrayal as well. Shefali Shah’s exhausted brilliance carries the moral weight of the capital city through this web series. The reality of this subject is so emotionally draining that I wanted to give up after a certain point.
The theme of Delhi Crime S3, with women selling women, in a world where we blame patriarchy for most things, will take time to sink in. Moreover, the horror here is not just the physical violence but the transactional nature of hope, where Badi Didis sell other women, using their internal knowledge of female vulnerability as a weapon. This betrayal, turning this emotional dependency into a supply chain, will make you breathless! It is so real and close that it could happen to any one of us at any point! It triggers, without a trigger warning!
Delhi Crime Season 3 Review: Last Words:
Huma Qureshi’s antagonist is the most powerful and heartbreaking aspect of this web series. It hits you hard. A character who is not a monster but herself a survivor of this trauma, but decides to learn the rules of the dark side and master them. She represents the ultimate tragic figure: a woman who achieves power by playing women. Her cold approach to selling women is more terrifying than any male villain. It highlights a very unsettling emotion that stays with you!
A monologue by one of the victims says, “Chhoti bachchiyon ko chhod hi to dete hain. Ya phenk dete hain kahin marne ko. Paida hote hi bojh jo ho jaati hain. Koi parwaah nahi hai. Yahi hua hoga.” Is it that frivolous?
4 stars!
I mean, I feel sick while rating this, probably it triggered me harder than it should. Probably, I should have taken this just as a show, only that I could not!
For more reviews of web shows, stay tuned to Koimoi.
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