The success of Black Warrant is testament to the sustained, even growing, popularity of the true (and the true adjacent) crime genre in India. Where we once sat transfixed in front of our television sets watching the sansani khez of the days pulped into weekly doses of kitsch on CID in the 1990s, Crime Patrol in the 2000s, Savdhaan India in the 2010s, we now watch resurrected real-life murderers, scamsters, and criminals of all shades stalking the OTT ether. As this mass obsession unfolds and multiplies, India’s leading production houses seem to be in hot pursuit of beat reporters—to option their books, consult on screenplays, and, to employ as researchers. When fact and fiction merge—when art imitates real life to mine deeper meaning about the human condition—what do journalists bring to these writer’s rooms?
In 2019, a team from SonyLIV wandered into the Zee News office in Mumbai, looking for the resident editor Sanjay Singh. Hansal Mehta’s Scam 1992 was nearing completion and they had come across Singh’s 2004 book, Telgi: Ek Reporter ki Diary which features notes from the years he spent investigating the mastermind behind the stamp paper scam (valued at Rs 40,000 crore at the time of his arrest), who once lavished Rs 80 lakh in one night on a dancer in a Mumbai bar. Bemused and intrigued by this hand of fate that was dusting the cobwebs off the case that arguably made his career, Singh signed a contract and began to sit in on Zoom calls with the writers to explain the sheer breadth of Telgi’s operation. He also supplied them with newsreels to help shape the character, and Applause Production’s legal team with boxes of paperwork as evidence to protect them from potential lawsuits.
Read Nidhi Gupta's story about crime journalists and writers and how their real-life investigations are shaping the narratives we see on screen.
