House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths: Season 1, Episode 1

Table Of Content

• House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths — Season 1, Episode 1
• House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths – Season 1, Episode 1
• A Family of 11 Died in a Mass Suicide Three Years Ago. A New Netflix Series Shows Why It’s Not Over Yet.
• House of Secrets The Burari Deaths review: Netflix show goes beyond gory details, re-examines case that gripped nation

One wonders if telling the story through the female gaze made any difference in it’s narration. The deceased family had seven women and four men, so there was definitely a female perspective in the events. I don’t know intrinsically how different the narrative would have turned out if it was told by a man. I was quite happy to get someone like Hemani Bhandari, the crime reporter on record,” concludes Yadav. Comprehensive, too, are the talking heads brought before the cameras by director Leena Yadav.

House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths — Season 1, Episode 1

Some will forever remain unanswered, for it’s a case that has no witnesses, or any survivors. The why element, here in this case, is the biggest element. We spoke to so many cops, and crime reporters, who deal with macabre scenes, violence and gory crime on a daily basis. But they all agreed that this case was something else.

House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths – Season 1, Episode 1

A case that was drenched in a concoction of black magic, mental health and above all, in thick strands of the regressive and toxic culture. On 1st July 2018, something so baffling happened that it shook the whole of India and sent shivers down the spine of everybody who heard the story or witnessed it for themselves. A family of 11 people had hung themselves in a neighborhood named Burari in the country’s national capital.

A Family of 11 Died in a Mass Suicide Three Years Ago. A New Netflix Series Shows Why It’s Not Over Yet.

The instructions he was given were written in diaries, and the family secretly lived by them for 11 years. Eleven members of the same family were found hanging in the living room of their north Delhi house one summer morning; three generations, dead in what appeared to be an occult ritual gone wrong. Their bodies were discovered by neighbours who noticed a disturbance in their daily routine. The open-and-shut nature of the Burari Deaths was also something that caught everyone’s attention. The series explains, in great detail, the ‘how’ and perhaps the ‘why’ of it all.

Mr Gurcharan Singh, the neighbor, said that people gossip for a few months and then move on, but nothing remains the same for those who witness such a life-altering incident first-hand. The Burari Deaths case is still a mystery to some and an incident that they wouldn’t forget till they die. But let it be an awakening for each and everyone who mocks mental health because having mental health problems doesn’t mean that you are weak or a madman.

A lesser series would’ve been quite content with rounding up the next of kin, a couple of journalists, and whichever cop was willing to talk and called it a day. But House of Secrets throws a handful of psychologists into the mix, adding a key perspective that is usually missing in programmes such as this. One theory that came forward was that a few days before, Lalit’s niece was engaged.

House of Secrets The Burari Deaths review: Netflix show goes beyond gory details, re-examines case that gripped nation - Hindustan Times

House of Secrets The Burari Deaths review: Netflix show goes beyond gory details, re-examines case that gripped nation.

Posted: Fri, 08 Oct 2021 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Something about the case stayed with all of them,” adds Yadav, 50. But even members of the (dead) family, who stay in a small town in Indore, don’t know the answers. As the documentary progressed, Yadav started piecing together the story of what led to that fateful day. Was it then really a mass suicide, a case of shared psychosis, or murder? She insisted that the case has no black-and-white answers, but that whatever the cops had discovered until then only skimmed the surface. The documentary series is also one of the few crime series that has been helmed by a woman.

The Crime Branch was also involved, and people didn’t stop in questioning the credibility of the Police forces in maintaining law and order. The local parties were taking advantage of the situation to incite people and further their agenda. For some, this is clearly a cathartic experience, allowing them to work through the apocalyptic event which obliterated three generations of the same family. Although the toll the investigation took on the forensics team is obvious. There are interviews with psychologists and medical examiners, trying to make sense of this tragic ordeal. This series does have an expansive feel and this is a credit to them as it really gives a new level into crime documentaries.

Initially, all the subjects clearly wanted to hide the uncomfortable bits, she said, as all of them kept saying the victims were “good people.” For Yadav, this was a major red flag.

True to the format, the makers ration information and insight to sustain drama and suspense till the last minute of three-episode series. With the advantage of hindsight and budget, Leena joins the dots to delve into layers of the complex case that, for months, remained in public memory even after it fell off the news cycle. While I’ve never been to Burari, or even that part of town, I’ve lived in this city my entire life. It’s one thing to watch fictional shows such as Paatal Lok and Delhi Crime and admire the attention to detail with which they were put together, but it’s rather distressing to relive a case that truly makes you question the very idea of decency. By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes. By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies, and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands.

As far as the who and what go, the discovery of handwritten diaries in the house soon shed light on a family that wasn’t at all what it seemed. A nearby CCTV camera showed no one outside of the family had entered or exited on the nights leading up to the deaths. It showed Tina and Shivam bringing in four newly purchased stools on June 28. On June 30, Tina and another woman are seen bringing home more stools; five plastic stools were found around the family. Later that night at 10.29pm, Lalit’s son Shivam opens the family’s plywood shop, bringing a small bundle of wires upstairs. This would be the last time any of the family was seen alive.