Delhi Crime (2019) Review: Justice as Exhausting Work

Is Delhi Crime worth watching?

Yes. Delhi Crime is one of the finest police dramas made anywhere in recent years, and its first season in particular is a landmark of Indian television. Richie Mehta treats investigation as gruelling labour rather than a series of clever breakthroughs, and Shefali Shah gives a commanding lead performance as the officer holding everything together. The caveats are that the subject matter is deeply distressing and the pace is deliberately patient, so this is not a casual binge.

What is Delhi Crime about?

Deputy Commissioner of Police Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah) leads a Delhi police team through a single major case each season. The first season follows the investigation into the 2012 gang rape on a moving bus in Delhi, a crime that shocked India and sparked nationwide protests. Vartika and her officers, including the young trainee Neeti Singh (Rasika Dugal) and the dogged Inspector Bhupendra Singh (Rajesh Tailang), race to find the perpetrators while dealing with political pressure, public anger and scarce resources. Adil Hussain plays the commissioner above her.

Delhi Crime was created by Richie Mehta and is an Indian series in Hindi and English, made for Netflix. Its first season became the first Indian programme to win the International Emmy for best drama series. This review covers seasons 1 to 3, 18 episodes in total; the series is ongoing, and each season stands on its own.

Procedure as a moral argument

What makes Delhi Crime distinctive is its refusal to turn a real tragedy into a thriller. The camera stays close to process: door-to-door enquiries, phone records, arguments over jurisdiction, officers sleeping at their desks. Tension accumulates through detail rather than twists, and the series asks the audience to pay the same kind of close attention the investigators do. That patience is the point. It shows justice as something built slowly by exhausted people inside a system that does not make it easy.

The first season is also careful about its central crime. The attack itself is never staged for effect; the horror is conveyed through its aftermath, the testimony of the survivor’s companion and the reactions of those who hear it.

Shefali Shah leads a superb ensemble

Shefali Shah’s Vartika is steely, controlled and quietly furious, a senior officer who must manage her team, her superiors and the media while holding back her own emotions. Shah plays her with enormous restraint, letting fatigue and grief show in small moments, and it is one of the best performances in any Indian series.

Rasika Dugal brings a sense of discovery as Neeti, a trainee confronting the realities of policing for the first time, and Rajesh Tailang gives Bhupendra a grounded, weary decency. Together they make the police station feel like a real workplace full of people doing their best under impossible conditions.

Where the series is vulnerable

The later seasons take on different cases, from a string of attacks on elderly residents to human trafficking, and while they maintain the show’s craft and seriousness, they lack the overwhelming urgency of the first. Some critics have also noted that the series presents the police in a largely sympathetic light, with institutional failures acknowledged but rarely examined in depth. The pacing, too, will test viewers who expect regular revelations. None of this diminishes the first season’s power.

Who should watch Delhi Crime?

It is essential for viewers who value serious, grown-up crime drama, and for anyone interested in how Indian television has grown in ambition. Each season runs between five and seven episodes, making it easy to take one case at a time. The content is harrowing: sexual violence, murder and cruelty are discussed in detail, even when not shown. It is for adults only. The crime drama hub collects more in this vein.

For related viewing:

• Adolescence for another rigorous, unflinching British drama about a violent crime and its aftermath.
• The Family Man for a pulpier, more entertaining Indian thriller with a very different tone.
• Chiraiya for a quieter Hindi drama about violence against women inside the family home.

The verdict

Delhi Crime is meticulous, exhausting and ethically serious, a procedural that uses patience as a form of respect for the real people behind its stories. Shefali Shah’s towering performance and the first season’s extraordinary control make it one of the landmarks of Indian streaming.

Rating: 5/5