IANS Exclusive Interview with Director Patrick Graham on Documentary Series ‘The Dupatta Killer’

IANS INDIA

Mumbai: In an exclusive interview, Director Patrick Graham delves into the making of his thrilling documentary series, 'The Dupatta Killer'. He reveals the challenges of capturing the chilling scenes of a serial killer's story and shares his approach to tackling the dark subject matter. Graham also opens up about his discussions with Mahanand Naik, a key figure in the documentary, and provides insight into their collaboration.   #PatrickGraham #TheDupattaKiller #Director #DocumentarySeries #MahanandNaik #Trending #BollywoodNews #BollywoodGossips #BollywoodUpdates #BollywoodNews #Bollywood #Bollywoodcelebrity #BollywoodHindiNews #ians

Transcript

00:00Well, I think that's the challenge of making a documentary about something like a serial

00:10killer is not to sensationalize it. I think there's plenty of content out there which

00:14does maybe sensationalize murder and serial killers and stuff like that. That's not what

00:19I think I and our team, my team was trying to do on this project. We wanted to make something

00:24that was sensitive and was respectful to the actual real facts of the tragedies that occurred

00:30in this situation. And I hope that we've managed to achieve that while also telling a engaging

00:36and exciting story.

00:43It certainly was disturbing. And the more I researched, the more I read about it, I

00:50read the court papers, went through the court documents and the case files. You know, I'm

00:57not a trained journalist, so these things do affect me on an emotional level. And there

01:01was some photos in particular that I found quite difficult to digest, which were the

01:07photographs that the accused, Mahanan Naik, took of one of his young victims. And those

01:14photos were so kind of powerful in their raw emotion that it made me really want to

01:20kind of make them a centerpiece in the actual documentary itself, which we have done.

01:29I think at the beginning of every project, I am, I wouldn't say second guessing, but

01:33certainly kind of contemplating whether this is the correct story to tell and whether there

01:39is any value in telling it beyond making a good story. So that is something that always

01:45occurs to me when I'm approached with work like this. I think in this case of the Dupatta

01:49killer, there was very important and significant societal issues that could be brought up through

01:57the telling of this story. For instance, the fact that there are, there's a group of women

02:02in Goa and in India who have essentially been dispossessed by their communities because

02:08they are above marriageable age, they are unmarried, they're not particularly well educated

02:12or skilled. So they're kind of like a forgotten group of people who are remarkably vulnerable

02:18to a predator like Mahanan Naik. And I think that exploring the life of these women is

02:26a useful aspect. The other thing that I think was useful about telling our story, which

02:31again made me want to tell it, was the fact that it's also about the justice system and

02:37whether a man like Mahanan Naik can be rehabilitated and should be allowed out at the end of their

02:42sentence.

02:47It's quite a complicated discussion and one that I hope will be provoked by our documentary,

02:53whether or not justice has been done. I think that the police in the most recent investigation

03:01that started in 2009, the police actually did a pretty thorough and professional, efficient

03:06job. And I think that the police in this instance, the team that worked on it, should

03:11be commended for the work that they did. However, 10 years prior to that, 15 years prior to

03:16that, there was another police investigation which didn't do its research thoroughly enough

03:21and didn't investigate Mahanan. And if they had, he would have been stopped and 15 lives

03:26would have been saved. So there was a failing of the police in the mid-90s, but the police

03:32in the late 2000s did a very good job in putting him away. It's very, very hard to

03:37convict a serial killer because there's no real motive. Some of the crimes are very old.

03:43There's no physical evidence. So it's a lot of circumstantial evidence and witnesses that

03:46as we explore in the film, aren't that willing to come forward. So it was very tough for

03:51the police, but they did manage to get two convictions, which held up in the high court

03:55and that put him away behind bars. And I think that was what, you know, obviously that was

03:59the intended outcome of the investigation.

04:08Unfortunately, we weren't able to gain access to the prison because Mahanan Naik declined

04:12to be interviewed by our team. But luckily, the journalist Mukesh Kumar, who we work closely

04:19with in Goa, already had an interview with Mahanan Naik. So if you watch the film, you

04:23will see an interview with the real serial killer, the man himself. So we do have his

04:30voice in the documentary. As far as people close to him, we actually went to his home

04:36village, Shiroda, where he used to live in Goa with his wife. And he'd lived there since

04:42childhood. So we spoke to his neighbours and we spoke to some of his cousins to find out

04:46more about his character and his childhood. So I think we got quite a decent picture of

04:51Mahanan Naik. Although, of course, it's really impossible to know exactly what he's thinking

04:56and who he is.

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