Documentary made on suspected suicide of 11 people together in Burari, shocks – News18 Hindi

House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths Review: Sanjeev Jha, who came from Madhubani, Bihar and started his political journey in 2013, is engaged in the social work of providing free education to slum children in Delhi. He contested the assembly elections on the ticket of Aam Aadmi Party. Elections were held again in 2015 and he won once again. Sanjeev Mehti played a role in Anna Hazare’s ‘India Against Corruption’. Arvind Kejriwal groomed this grass root worker to make a dent in BJP’s stronghold. Knowing all the education and politics on one hand and facing the suspicious suicide committed by 11 people of the same family together in my assembly constituency, on the other hand. On June 1, 2018, dead bodies of 11 people of the Chundawat alias Bhatia family were found in a two-storey house in Sant Nagar in Sanjeev Jha’s assembly constituency Burari. 10 were found hanging from the ceiling and the senior most, his mother was strangled to death in another room. Not only Delhi, the whole country was shaken by this incident. House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths, a 3 episode true crime documentary on Netflix, tries to understand the psychology behind this crime.

Filmmaker Leena Yadav and her assistant in her film ‘Rajma Chawal’ Anubhav Chopra have jointly directed this chilling and heart-wrenching true crime documentary. It would be appropriate to warn that the weak hearted should not watch it. Although there is no scene to create a jugupas, nor are the dead bodies shown hanging. The music, filming and interview of each person in this documentary is so heart-wrenching that you just shiver. There is no custom of this type of documentary in India, whereas many such foreign documentaries are available on Netflix and people like them very much. ‘House of Secrets’ is the first Indian documentary of its kind that delves into the psychology behind a heinous crime. How delusional situations emerge from the disturbed mental state of one person in the family and the whole family, out of fear of the unknown, does what they are told. The sad thing is that this time he loses his life.

Narayani Devi, 80 years, her elder daughter Pratibha Bhatia (57 years) and her daughter Priyanka (33 years), elder son Bhavnesh (50 years), his wife Savita (48 years) and their daughters Neetu (25 years), Monu (25 years) 23 years) and son Dhruv (15 years). Narayani Devi’s younger son Lalit (45 years), his wife Tina (42 years) and their only son Shivam (15 years) all lived together. Dharta Lalit was the main driver of this whole incident. Although Lalit was a very decent and gentle person, but due to a head injury in a road accident and later due to another horrific accident, he had lost his voice and his personality had undergone a terrible change.

His father died in 2007 and after some time Lalit started telling the whole family that his father’s spirit had entered him. The family members found it a bit strange but Lalit used to behave a lot like his father. His words started being accepted. At his behest, the family members opened a grocery shop and then plywood and hardware. The fortune of the house worked. Lalit used to write his father’s words in a diary every day and all the family members had to read it and follow it. Slowly all the members started writing diaries. Apart from everyday things, how to walk on the right path, such as religious thoughts, which day will be worshiped, who will say what to whom, analysis of everyone’s behavior, all such things were written. Although everything was normal on the night of the suicide, people from the neighborhood met him, deals took place at the shop i.e. life was normal. Then at night the whole family committed suicide by hanging themselves from the ceiling with the help of ropes, dupattas, sarees. Since Narayani Devi was old, she could not hang herself, so her throat was strangulated separately. Some members’ hands and legs were tied and everyone was blindfolded.

Leena Yadav has worked hard for this documentary. Television reports, newspaper cuttings, conversations with crime reporters and especially with all the police officers related to the case are part of this documentary. The scenes of conversation with the neighbors of the Bhatia family of Sant Nagar can bring you to panic. Since the family lived in this area for about 20 years and had two shops, where daily business was done. Apart from this, all the members of the family had good acquaintance in the neighborhood. Talks were also held with some of Lalit’s friends, who in the end performed the last rites of all. Different friends tell different images of Lalit. The most chilling statements are those of the police who were the first to reach the spot and found all the bodies hanging from the net on the ceiling of the house and the family’s pet dog barking all the time. There was only one thing in the statements of the eyewitnesses which rings like a hammer on the mind – we have never seen such a scene in our life and now we will never be able to forget it even if we want to.

There are some things in this documentary that make it better than any other crime documentary. In the interview of the policemen, the policemen answer smilingly. Solving crime cases is a daily job for him. Despite seeing such a horrifying scene, they have to forget all their sorrows, pains and happiness and leave to work on the next case. You may be surprised to see the SHO of the police station speaking English. When the police constables have to go to the crime scene early in the morning, they are tired after working all night and want to lie down for a while, but their fate takes them to their locality. At one place, Leena has kept a shot in which the policeman is talking on the phone and he tells the caller to talk later, as he is busy shooting a documentary. The human face of the police is not only of kindness and compassion but also of pride in a small achievement. Although the case was sent to the crime branch, but this does not reduce the status of the police station. In the documentary, Leena and Abhinav have not made the mistake of showing espionage or theatrical adaptation of the incident. The police have closed the case and no new investigation can be done in it, but they have tried to explain the mental illness behind this mass suicide with the help of a psychologist.

The mystery that will never be solved now is that how 42-year-old Lalit, who was mentally challenged due to an accident and an attempt to murder, tricked every member of the house that his father’s soul was inside him. How would Lalit’s mother feel when her son instructs her through his diary? How would his young son and nephew understand his point. What kind of temptation would it be that all the members agreed to die together. Why did the whole family sacrifice in this ritual of death? The media had turned this case into a circus. Dozens of reporters and cameramen surrounded the spot from all sides. Not even a single clue or information was in the hands of the media, so the report was being shown on the basis of speculation. The conversation of any person living in that street was shown on TV as a real revelation. The police and crime branch kept silence in this circus.

Qutub-e-Kripa, a children’s band trained at AR Rahman’s music academy, KM Music Conservatory, composed the music for this documentary. When Rahman has his hand on the head, the talent comes out in front. Music has saved this documentary from being cumbersome. It also took 4 pairs of hands to edit the hundreds of hours of footage – James Haygood, Zachary Kashket, M Meliani and Namrata Rao. The co-director of the documentary, Anubhav Chopra, has worked as an assistant director with big directors on about a dozen films ranging from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara to Dil Bechara. Originally, Anubhav from Jalandhar secured the fourth position in the script writing competition of Cinestaan. Leena Yadav is an old name. Some of the films directed by him are – ‘Shabd’, ‘Teen Patti’, ‘Parched’, and ‘Rajma Chawal’. In the beginning of his career, he also directed a television show called ‘Say Na Something to Anupam Uncle’. Leena’s husband Aseem Bajaj is also the producer of this documentary. Aseem Bajaj is actually the son of well-known theater personality Ram Gopal Bajaj and grandson of Khemchand Prakash, the music director of Lata Mangeshkar’s song Aayega Aane Wala (Mahal).

11 people died. 11 people commit suicide. Meeting of written diaries of 11 people. These diaries were also being written for 11 years. According to psychologists, most of the families in India are of this type. Superstition, complete dependence on any one person, leaving logic and talking about ghost-ghost-spirit, doing such religious activities in the name of worship, which can cause serious harm. Watch this documentary. Maybe you will be able to stop any such accident happening around you.

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Tags: movie review, netflix