The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assasination Case – My Flash Review!

I was in Chennai on my summer vacation break in May 1991 when the dastardly and gruesome assassination of Rajiv Gandhi happened. In the very early hours of that day, I was woken from deep sleep to hear the breaking news. Since then, I have closely followed every detail of the investigation that ensued. I have also read SIT chief Karthikeyan’s book and watched videos of SIT member Ragothaman on what turned out to be an arduous but fascinating investigation.

It is with this background that I binge-watched the new series on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case with great interest to see if the portrayal does justice to the real story. The series is based on the book “Ninety Days: The True Story of the Hunt for Rajiv Gandhi’s Assassins”, by Anirudhya Mitra, who was with India Today tracking and reporting on the murder trial.

At the outset, I must say that Nagesh Kukunoor’s series perfectly adapts the real story for the small screen. When recreating real-life events, the story is already in place. What requires effort is the screenplay to some degree, but more importantly, the attention to detail in the making. In all these aspects, Kukunoor excels, and the entire seven-episode series is a compelling watch.

One of the major challenges when recreating a real-life event, especially with the same characters, is getting the casting right. This includes ensuring physical likenesses, body language, and dialogue delivery. In all these aspects, Kukunoor and his casting team are on point. While all the actors have performed well, I was particularly impressed with Vidyut Gargi, who plays Major Raveendran, the leader of the NSG commandos. Incidentally, Raveendran, who became a prolific filmmaker himself in Malayalam after retiring from service and is known as Major Ravi, made a film on this case—”Mission 90 Days” with Mammootty in the lead as the NSG squad head. Also noteworthy is the choice of Sahil Vaid as one of the SIT members, who is at ease with Hindi and Tamil.  The one casting that misfired, in my opinion, was that of Velupillai Prabakaran.

The production design team has meticulously recreated some of the story’s scenes with great detail, which is a significant plus for the series. The same applies to the camera work by Sangram Giri. While various source materials on the assassination and its aftermath exist, including books by Karthikeyan, Ragothaman, and journalists like Neena Gopal, Nagesh has adhered to the narrative based on Mitra’s book and remains loyal to it. Although I followed the story closely, I had not heard about the instances where Sivarasan and his team decided to stay after murdering Rajiv Gandhi to stage an attack on “Malligai,” the SIT headquarters in Chennai. This was news to me. In another instance, the team claims they also planned to eliminate Jayalalithaa. I am not sure if this was true.

The series, quite logically, refuses to take sides. There are a few dialogues here and there about the interweaving of domestic politics in the Sri Lankan Tamil issue, but that’s about it. When it comes to the story of the LTTE, I have often seen creators taking sides for or against the LTTE. Nagesh Kukunoor deftly avoids that and focuses solely on the procedural part of the investigation. It effectively depicts inter-agency conflicts and attempts at one-upmanship.

Overall, The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case can compare in quality with the recently released one on the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. In fact, this series is one up on that as here, the entire sequence of events has been re-created with actors, unlike the documentary style of the Osama story. The web series, now streaming on Sony Liv, is a must-watch.