Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Indian Predator: The Butcher Of Delhi’ On Netflix, A Docuseries About A Serial Killer Taunting Delhi Law Enforcement With Dismembered Bodies

Indian Predator: The Butcher of Delhi is a three-part docuseries, directed by Ayesha Sood and produced by VICE India, that details the case of a serial killer that would leave dismembered bodies around Delhi, usually along with notes that taunted Delhi Police with details of their investigation that they’ve missed. 

INDIAN PREDATOR: THE BUTCHER OF DELHI: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Over the blurry shot of a TV, we hear news reports of various unidentified bodies found around Delhi.

The Gist: We start in 2006, when police received a phone call from a man saying he dropped a body at a gate of Tihar, a jail complex. When officers came to inspect the body, they found the decapitated body wrapped multiple times, with no sign of where the head was. A note accompanying the body cursed out authorities, threatened them, and told them that the writer had issues with law enforcement in the past; he served time for a crime he claimed he didn’t commit.

Because the body couldn’t be identified, the investigation languished until 2007, when another body was dumped in front of the jail, this time with no note, but dismembered and wrapped in a similar way. Then soon after, another body was dumped, with a note that forensic scientists figured out was written by the same person as the first note. Soon, Sunder Singh and his investigative team were on the trail of a man named Chandrakant Jha, based on neighborhood slang he used, informant information, and other clues.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Indian Predator: The Butcher of Delhi is very much like other serial killer docuseries of recent vintage: Night Stalker: The Hunt For A Serial Killer, Ted Bundy: Falling For A Killer, Making A Murderer, etc.

Our Take: One of the things that Indian Predator has going for it is that it doesn’t stretch out the actual search for Chandrakant Jha, painstakingly going over each murder and then doing a biographical sketch of the killer. The show gets to the point: Here are the bodies, here is why it was so tough to investigate, here is why the idea of a serial killer in India’s capital city is an unusual idea, and how they got on Jha’s trail.

During the three episodes, we hope that Sood will go into Jha’s psyche and why he felt compelled to kill; in one of his letters to police, he says he has to kill a certain number of people per year or else “I’ll lose my shit.” But we’re also fascinated with how the authorities managed to piece the mystery together via lots of circumstantial clues, including regional slang, which helped them narrow the list of possible suspects to the point where detectives could use their informant network.

What the first episode effectively shows is that smart investigators can crack tough cases, no matter where in the world they are, with the advantage of life experience, attention to detail, and an ability to make contacts on the streets. The other two parts will likely show Jha going through the legal system, and explained how he was actually jailed for similar murders in the late ’90s but ended up being released.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: The pursuit of Jha takes a fortuitous turn when the street vendor’s motorized cart is seen by one of Singh’s task force members.

Sleeper Star: Singh sounds humble, but he made a ballsy move by telling his bosses to give him three days to find the killer, and he managed to find Jha on Day 3.

Most Pilot-y Line: Jha’s phone calls, letters and other communications are voiced by an actor, with a disclaimer on the bottom of the screen that says “Audio recreation based on police records.” The disclaimer, while necessary, is distracting, but it also takes the viewer out of the reality of what they’re seeing on screen.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Indian Predator: The Butcher of Delhi doesn’t pad its runtime with off-topic examinations of the time period or unnecessary biographical sketches. It talks about the investigation into one of the Indian capital city’s most confounding cases, and keeps viewers engaged.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.