Looking at the mystery from a new angle

Aakhri Sach director says intriguing nature of Burari deaths case led him to reimagine it for his fiction drama

In 2018, the entire country was shocked by the Burari deaths case where 11 members of the Chundawat family in Delhi died under strange circumstances, believed to be a ritual mass suicide. Five years on, director Robbie Grewal has reimagined the case to deliver a fictional narrative in Aakhri Sach.

In the Disney+ Hotstar crime drama, Tamannaah Bhatia plays inspector Anya, whose relentless pursuit of the truth in the case takes a toll on her. So, what made him revisit the case? Intrigue, says the director. “The Burari deaths was an intriguing case. There were no clear answers, the mystery remained unanswered. When I got a chance, I was happy to work on this. What happened to the family [leading up to their deaths] kept me intrigued all along,” shares Grewal.

However, the director asserts that the real-life case is used as the starting point for the fictional story that also stars Abhishek Banerjee. Grewal, who has previously helmed the 2019 film Romeo Akbar Walter, enjoyed the freedom that a web series affords. “You get to play with details, and add to the characters’ arcs. Films are two-hour-long; web series are a lot [longer]. It was a learning curve for me.”

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