Here’s the tale uncovered behind documentary, ‘Delhi Riots: A tale of burn and blame’

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A documentary based on violence that took place in North East Delhi in February last year was released on the (OTT) platform ‘Voot’ Tuesday Feb. 23, 2021, .

Talking about what had inspired him to make a documentary, ‘Delhi Riots: A Tale Of Burn and Blame’, on such a sensitive issue, Indian filmmaker Kamlesh K Mishra said he felt that grief that people had gone through on losing their loved ones needs to be shown.

Mishra, the writer-director of the 66th National Film Award-winning film ‘Madhubani: The Station of Colors’ has directed the documentary ‘Delhi Riots: A Tale Of Burn and Blame’.

The movie has sought to capture the real picture of violence, first-hand account of eyewitnesses and the ‘agenda and propaganda’ that triggered mindless violence, bloodshed and resulted in the killing of about 53 people.

According to the filmmaker the whole idea of creating the documentary, was inspired by how events transpired.

“In 2020, on February 22 evening, North East Delhi got chocked down. Because CAA protesters blocked the 2 main roads which connect it to other parts of Delhi. After that the violence that took place, the media started false narrating the story. The other thing was people were constantly dying and people were concerned only about who did it,” Mishra said.

“I felt that grief that people had gone through on losing their loved ones needs to be shown. The brutality that people had gone through was very painful. Hence I decided to make a documentary. So I went to those people to know in-depth about the issue. So I came to know that it’s planning was happening from before hand and there was a lot of international conspiracy involved,” he added.

He continued and explained all sources he used to collect the proper content for his movie, “So all of those I got with documentary proof and even police too that how weapons were made for this riot. So these were the few things which I really wanted to convey I wanted to bring out the suffering and pain that common people went through. So I wanted to convey the story through real victims, eyewitnesses and police without giving opinion in it.”

The filmmaker further shared that there were a lot of books on Delhi violence but he didn’t want to take reference from printed material.

“I wanted to gather information on the ground level and people who were the part of this violence and victims. It was done purposely during the time of Trump coming to India.”

Mishra also shared what his objectives were for bringing the story out on the big screen, explaining he wanted to convey that such kind of brutality and violence is a question on humanity as it affects the lives of many innocents.

“The title is inspired by people who burnt the Delhi were the ones blaming others (sic). It also features people who were brainwashed and were been provoked for this brutality. So we shot, and took bytes from police commissioner and big journalists,” he told.