Police officer Ramakant Kulkarni is in the middle of conducting a training programme in Mumbai when he is dispatched to a small town in Maharashtra to investigate a brutal case. Even after Ramakant arrives in Manvat to look into the killings of seven girls and women, his professorial manner never leaves him.
Manvat’s squad is keen on learning new strategies from this storied officer, who prefers psychological tactics to extracting the truth from suspects with brute force. Ramakant retains his aura even when his approach starts to look plodding and random, rather than patient and precise.
Ramakant’s methodical manner drives the plotting of the Sony LIV show Manvat Murders, rather than the chilling crime itself. Over eight episodes, director Ashish Bende and writer Girish Joshi present a police procedural that emphases the value of old-fashioned deduction and legwork.
Manvat Murders is based on an actual case and real-life characters. The Marathi show revisits a killing spree between 1972 and 1974 that involved human sacrifice and blood rituals. Ramakant Kulkarni headed the investigation, and later documented his experiences in his 2004 memoir Footprints on the Sands of Crime.
In the fictionalised version, Ashutosh Gowariker plays Ramakant as the brain-over-brawn cop keen to separate fact from conspiracy theory. Ramakant’s mission puts him in conflict with the powerful landlord Uttamrao (Makarand Anaspure), Uttamrao’s mistress Rukmini (Sonali Kulkarni), Rukmini’s sister Samindri (Sai Tamhankar) and the shaman Kaachu Paaku (Vitthal Nagnath Kale). Ramakant tackles unreliable witnesses, corruption within the ranks and red herrings.
The use of repeated flashbacks to the ruthless slayings is the closest way in which Manvat Murders resembles other streaming series about sensational cases. The decision to underplay the bizarre nature of the source material is initially welcome, especially given how shows about otherworldly rituals tend to overdo bug-eyed psychics and their possessed followers.
But this rectitude becomes a liability when it’s time to examine the interplay between superstition, caste, gender and rapacity. The horrors of this particular case, which make it unique as well as worthy of an adaptation so many decades later, are missing from the screen treatment.
Manvat Murders has been written and filmed like a television show, rather than a streaming series. The show is a solid whodunit but a sketchy whydunit.
The atmospherics essential for creating the trance-like state that existed in Manvat, the narrative layers required to give body to a follow-the-clues thriller, the characters who explain why innocent people died needlessly – these elements are barely present.
The only wisdom gained in the present by looking back on a distant past is that officers of the calibre of Ramakant Kulkarni do not exist any more. But though Manvat Murders falls short in examining the intricacies of occult beliefs, it does amply reveal how small-town policing works.
The police characters are deftly sketched, from the grubby-handed Paranje (Umesh Jagtap) to his over-zealous colleague Shukla (Shardul Saraf). Ashutosh Gowariker’s sensitive, cool-headed Ramakant is especially effective when dealing with crucial witnesses or stubborn suspects. Ramakant’s lack of swagger isn’t just a refreshing change but the need of the hour if such cases are to be solved, the show suggests.
Ramakant’s interactions with his inexperienced staffers produce wry comedy. Purnanand Wankhede memorably plays the bright constable Nawathe, who makes an invaluable contribution to the probe just when it seems to be going nowhere.
But at least one actor is miscast. Makarand Anaspure is a poor fit as the supposedly diabolical, controlling Uttamrao.
The other actors are better chosen. Kishor Kadam vividly plays a man whose cowardice leads to avoidable tragedy.
Sonali Kulkarni has some superb scenes as the deeply conflicted Rukmini, but she is underserved by the focus on Rukmini’s sister Samindri. As Samindri, the excellent Sai Tamhankar has the better mapped graph and meatier moments.
The promotion of Samindri to quasi-heroine status appears to have been done to give the case the sense of a resolution. In real life, the police investigation went sideways when it reached the courts.
That’s another missing layer in Manvat Murders. The show scores in terms of its casework detailing, but flubs the reason why Ramakant finds himself in Manvat in the first place, chasing an extreme instance of diabolical greed.
Also read:
Human sacrifice, blood offerings, greed for gold: Why the 1970s Manwat murders continue to shock
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