In The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case, director Nagesh Kukunoor doesn't waste any time getting into the thick of it.
Minutes into the first episode, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (played by Rajiv Kumar) is assassinated on May 21, 1991, in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu by a suicide bomber during an election campaign rally. This suicide bomber, who went by the name of Dhanu, belonged to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Sri Lankan separatist rebel organisation founded in 1976 by Velupillai Prabhakaran and operational till 2009. But the mastermind behind the operation was Prabhakaran's trusted soldier and LTTE prime hitman Sivarasan.
The 1991 general elections are just around the corner, with Rajiv Gandhi poised to return as the prime minister of India. One of the key promises of his election manifesto is to uphold the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord that dissolved the LTTE.
Rajiv Gandhi is a thorn in the LTTE's side ever since he deployed the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 1990 to snuff out the organisation.
In the flashback, the former Indian Prime Minister also lets Prabhakaran know that they will talk when the LTTE members lay down their arms, something that was unacceptable by the LTTE chief. In 1990, a year before the general elections, Prabhakaran hatches the assassination plan of Rajiv Gandhi and conveys the message to LTTE's intelligence chief Pottu Amman, who then chooses Sivarasan for the execution.
The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case follows the 90-day investigation in a measured and taut manner never taking eyes off the ball. That is, to keep the viewer engaged in what could happen next.
Who Are DR Kaarthikeyan & Co
An anchor on the national broadcaster Doordarshan reads out the breaking news in a restrained, almost dispassionate voice. Just before that, CBI officer DR Kaarthikeyan is woken up by a call on his residence's landline in the middle of the night.
DR Kaarthikeyan, played by Amit Sial (Maharani, Raid 2) with a cool restraint, is given the "most stressful job in the country right now". He is appointed the chief of a Special Investigative Team (SIT) put together to probe Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.
DR Kaarthikeyan wants to assemble his own desi 'Avengers' to nail the culprits behind the former prime minister's brutal and brazen killing. So, he gathers the best of the best from every corner of the country.
Now streaming: The Hunt that gripped a nation. 6 men who led it to justice. Every clue mattered. Every second counted.
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Enter Delhi wallah SP-CBI Amit Verma, a self-assured and dignified turn by Sahil Vaid who was often relegated to the hero's best friend parts (Dil Bechara, Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania). Amit Verma is an asset to the team because he's an IPS of the Tamil Nadu cadre who is fluent in Tamil and gorges on saapad almost as voraciously as the other Tamil person in the room.
DSP-CBI Ragothaman is the SIT's main man when it comes to getting inside information about the LTTE movement across Tamil Nadu. An excellent Bhagavathi Perumal (Monica, O My Darling; Super Deluxe) plays Ragothaman who is just a soldier on the right side of history, but quietly believes that "one man's terrorist is another man's hero".
Girish Sharma (Paatal Lok) as DIG-CBI Radhavinod Raju is the calm in the middle of the storm who knows the enemy inside out, Danish Iqbal (Maharani) is right on the money as the DIG-CBI Amod Kanth who keeps quoting his grandmother's adages to crack open the case, and Vidyuth Gargi (Pushpavalli) fits the bill as the no-nonsense NSG Commando Captain Ravindran who leads the attack team into the safe house in Konanakunte near Bangalore (now Bengaluru), Karnataka, where Sivarasan and his mates are holed up.
Sivarasan The Mastermind
We don't know who he is when we first lay our eyes on Sivarasan AKA the 'One-Eyed Jack' in The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case. He is soon revealed to be this feared, precise, and calculating LTTE soldier who devised the whole plan. He is, like a character says in the series, a ghost.
Played by a formidable Shafeeq Mustafa, Sivarasan has many aliases, with Sivarajan, Rajan, Rajah, Arumai, and Aravinth being a few of them. Prabhakaran calls him Pakya, a derivative from his real name Chandrasekharampillai Packiachandran. When the LTTE chief meets his Pakya after he survives a ghastly bomb attack while fighting off the Sri Lankan Army but loses his left eye, Prabhakaran gives him the nickname of Ottaraikkannan or "one-eyed person".
Days after Sivarasan and his fellow LTTE soldiers carry out one of the most shocking incidents in Independent India, they are shown enjoying a Rajinikanth movie in a theatre, laughing when the Tamil superstar fights off his adversaries in the most Rajinikanth way possible.
Sivarasan, depicted as a cinephile who also watches silent black-and-white movies in the series, is a chainsmoker with a glass eye who uses a gel cream to set his curly hair in place just before he sends his four lookalikes to the different parts of Madras (now Chennai) to confuse the authorities who are hot on his trail.
Bureaucracy Laid Bare
Besides being a gripping thriller, The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination also excels in a very realistic depiction of all those roadblocks that often impede the progress of a high-profile political case - be it pure lapse in duty, the desire to be a hero in the story or true-blue red-tapism.
In a key scene towards the end when the team is inches away from grabbing the perpetrators, DR Kaarthikeyan himself asks his subordinates to hold off for some more time. Dusk turns to dawn and the team is like sitting ducks with Sivarasan and his team holed up in the Konanakunte safehouse.
The forces get "orders from above" to stand by till the time is right. The frustration is palpable on both sides of the screen. We all know this feeling. At that time, the viewer is as frustrated, angry and worn out as that NSG commando on duty who is so tired waiting for orders that he starts smoking a cigarette while he's in position sprawled on the ground.
Past Rewind, Present Relevant
This series also serves as a time capsule. Landlines, VCR, inland letters, Ambassadors and boxed TV sets -- watching all these remnants of the past via streaming service, on a flatscreen television feels like a journey back to the simpler times, at least in terms of technological advancement. It is ironic that imperfect subtitling and patchy audio in places in The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination somewhat dents the experience.
A character in the show asks, "How does one differentiate between a refugee and an LTTE member?" LTTE was operational in Sri Lanka till 2009, but the issue is still relevant - how does one find out who is a refugee and who is a threat to the country?
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Amit Sial,, Sahil Vaid, Bhagavathi Perumal (Bucks), Danish Iqbal, Girish Sharma, Vidyuth Gargi, Shafeeq Mustafa, Anjana Balaji, B Sai Dinesh, Shruthy Jayan, and Gouri Menon
