Mumbai has served as an eternal muse for content creators for eons. Be it the cosmopolitan culture or the world of homely chawls, it has always found takers in the world of literature and cinema. Unfortunately, India’s financial capital is also notorious for its underworld. It’s rise, the people on both sides of the divide, and its fallout has been well-documented.
Till now, we had several Hindi movies projecting both the dons and cops as dirty harries from time to time. However, it is for the first time that we see what it was actually like to be in Mumbai in the 90s from the horse’s mouth.
A new documentary on Netflix, ‘Mumbai Mafia: Police vs the Underworld’ brings us accounts from the rockstars of law and order who eventually came to be known as ‘encounter specialists.’ They were the ones who did the “dirty” but essential work of eliminating these dons and their henchmen.
A.A. Khan, Ravindra Angre, and most importantly Pradeep Sharma take us through the sinister underbelly of Mumbai in 90s when the underworld ruled the roost and it was a war between pistols and AK-47s. The series brilliantly documents the who, what, when, why, where, and how of their thrilling journey which was fraught with dangers.
Francis Longhurst and Raaghav Dar have done a fantastic job of tracing the genesis of what led to the formation of special squads which were exclusively tasked to kill terrorists. They were given a carte blanche license to kill. And they did make the most of it. They definitely did come to the rescue of Mumbai which had become the capital of organized crime.
The gritty documentary tells us about the modus operandi adopted by both the cops and the underworld. These accounts are narrated by people who were stakeholders in what was happening then. We not only meet several ‘encounter cops’ and journalists, but also someone who worked for the D-Company. The only voices missing are those of the victims and politicians.
Of all the narrators, it is Pradeep Sharma’s story that forms the center stage of this balanced documentary. With his first-person narration, he literally takes us into the mind of an encounter specialist, what goes into the killing of a person, and what happens to the cop after that. He tells us convincingly how the system uses and abuses encounter specialists. The documentary makers have done a remarkable job in showing his journey from encounters to ‘fake encounters’. The series also talks about A. A. Khan who was uncomfortable with the unfettered power vested in police and thus steps aside providing a holistic approach to the subject.
Justin Nicholls and Rishi Rich’s music woven together with archival footage gives a movie-like feel to the series. The almost 1.27 hrs long documentary is gritty, imaginative, and interesting. It’s streaming on Netflix and is certainly nothing less than ‘Ab Tak Chappan’ or ‘Satya’ which have regaled audiences.
