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

Table Of Content

• Storyline
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• 11 Bodies
• ‘Heeramandi’ Ending Explained: Is Bibbojaan Dead Or Alive?
• House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths – Season 1, Episode 1
• The Curious Case of Lalit Chundawat
• ‘House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths’ Explained – What led to the Final Ritual?
• House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths - watch online: streaming, buy or rent

This includes family members, friends, neighbours, police officers, forensic experts, psychologists, doctors, journalists, writers, crime reporters, former employees, co-workers and teachers. Even the family plumbing contractor is interviewed. This three-part documentary series explores what happened to this traditional Indian family. This case caught my attention under the sheer number of deaths that happened. The documentary is quite unpleasant and left me feeling uneasy. The series is fast-paced, a lot of information and emotion is put into the three 45-minute episodes, which makes it hard to stop watching.

Storyline

He might have had the fear that once she goes to a different family, then his secret might be spilled out. Maybe that created a sort of insecurity inside him and triggered him enough to start plotting and planning the dastardly act. The forensic experts and the team involved said that never in their lives have they seen such a gruesome scene ever, and given an option, they would undo that haunting picture from their minds forever. The Police officials were under a lot of stress and pressure as this had become a very high profile case. The Chief Minister himself went to the scene to get a ground report. There were a million other theories floating, and blame games had begun.

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In the end, I was left wondering what had happened. You will be left questioning whether this was a mass murder or a suicide, and that will stay with you. If you are someone who has an appetite for true crime, this is a fantastic documentary to watch. I had never heard about this incident and I have found this a fascinating documentary. There is enough detailed footage and stories for me to feel well informed, yet I still feel left a bit hopeless. Like any good documentary, this one has you questioning and thinking from beginning to end.

11 Bodies

He had been subjected to a head injury and also a traumatic event in the past. After his father, Bhopal Singh, passed away, Lalit started showing obscure behavior. When the editorial board of BJPsych International acceded to the launch of a web-based monthly arts blog, I volunteered as the commissioning editor. I did this partly because I already straddled the worlds of psychiatry and the creative arts. But also because it was an opportunity to be a part of something new.

It still baffles the psychiatrist that even the kids didn’t speak about it to anyone. Folie a famille, a shared delusion within a family, is a potential retrospective diagnosis of the tragedy at the heart of this documentary. Lalit’s aforementioned features characterises the active individual who transmits an abnormal belief in a Folie a deux.

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

The March article of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International is the first blog of the series. The blog is written by Dr Dami Ajayi, Specialty Doctor, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Trainee/Blog Editor, BJPsych International. The diaries, 11 in all, recovered from the family home, covered the period from September 2007 with the final entry just before their deaths. Three years ago, 11 members of the Chundawat family were found dead under mysterious circumstances at their home in Burari, New Delhi. This caused several conspiracy theories and shocked an entire nation.

The Curious Case of Lalit Chundawat

Ultimately, it seems to have pushed the family to take the extreme step. Interviews with the fiance of Lalit’s niece and his family could have opened a few more windows into the mind of the family that held on to its secrets till the very last. In the opening montage of the Netflix docu-series, sunlight gets trapped in the large mesh of electricity wires hanging from poles in the narrow lane 4 of Sant Nagar in Burari, North Central Delhi.

Almost three years back, the country woke up to the horrific news of 11 deaths in a single night. What set aside the news of 11 dead people, was the sheer strangeness of the situation. The 11 were all part of a single family — ranging from a young teen to an elderly grandmother — and found dead hanging by their necks in the open space in their own house.

House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths - watch online: streaming, buy or rent

Although he was the youngest son, family members agree he was the favourite. When his father Bhopal Singh died, he took up the position of family patriarch, a role he set about with quiet fervour. The kind that ends with your whole family dead at your behest. Murder, mass suicide, or accident during a ritual, the widely-reported deaths were labeled in various ways before the case was closed, leaving behind a trail of questions hanging in the air. He was, in a way, the leader of his own mini-cult, influencing his followers with minor ‘miracles’ and leading them to salvation and prosperity. Lalit had convinced the family that one last ritual needed to be done.

In his case, he may have transmitted it across three generations of a family for eleven years, resulting in the most fatal outcome possible. The spontaneous recovery of Lalit’s voice may have reinforced the family’s belief in “his father’s visits”. Under Lalit’s guidance, the family became more prosperous. Understandably, Lalit became the de facto head of family on the basis of his charisma, financial contributions and “psychic” abilities.

From superstition to collective psychosis, the series dwells upon several causes but it doesn’t seek to provide any clear, decisive answers. Instead, Leena, with the help of police officials, journalists, medical experts, and of course friends, relatives, and neighbours of the deceased Chundawat family, conducts a kind of social autopsy. The second episode in the series, titled “Diaries,” forms the crux of the story as it charts the breakthrough in the investigation when cops found diaries in the house written over 11 years and, eerily enough, written in the third person. The diaries had detailed instructions on how every single member of the family is supposed to go through life, where they are to invest their money, and detailed instructions for “mass salvation” including how hangings should be conducted. This docuseries examines chilling truths and theories around the deaths of 11 members of a Delhi family.

I had to surrender to it, as the emotional content was so strong,” says Yadav, who is an alumna of Delhi’s LSR College and went on to study Mass Communication at Sophia College, Mumbai. I feel that the same thing told through a different lens will be a different experience for everyone involved,” she says. Ultimately, a discussion about mental health, and the power and influence the patriarchal figure holds in Indian society might have been a more insightful place for this fascinating documentary to start. A psychological autopsy concluded they believed they would walk away from the ritualistic hanging to emerge on to a higher plane. Pages and pages of musings, revealed by handwriting analysis to have been written by Priyanka and Neetu, had been dictated by Lalit, who had come to believe his dead father was not only communicating with him, but also visiting him.

Why making sense of the Burari deaths depends on your streamer subscription - Scroll.in

Why making sense of the Burari deaths depends on your streamer subscription.

Posted: Sun, 08 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

It’s worth remembering the names and ages of these family members, because the series offers scant insight into who they were as people, their hopes, dreams and aspirations. Information about the youngest victims, the two teenage boys in particular, falls disappointingly short. But while the series will satisfy anyone unfamiliar with the fate of the Bhatias, those au fait with the crime may be left wanting more. What I really appreciate is in the final episode co-directors Leena Yadav and Anubhav Chopra focus on the friends, family, neighbors, those who have scars that will never heal. Allowing for some healing in what is a truly, tragic case.

EXCLUSIVE: Paranormal investigator Jay Alani calls House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths documentary ‘one-sided’ - PINKVILLA

EXCLUSIVE: Paranormal investigator Jay Alani calls House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths documentary ‘one-sided’.

Posted: Mon, 08 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

The series highlights the very secretive nature of India’s families, that how many families are seemingly, ‘normal’ and ‘well-functioning’ on the surface, but are plagued by issues of all kinds. The trailer of the series shows the dead family dancing at a wedding, and celebrating birthdays. “Ghar ki baat, ghar main hi rehni chahiye” quotes Yadav from the House of Secrets The Burari Deaths. As a child I thought that I was the only one suffering, and everyone else had a happy family. The best part of me growing up was that I learnt that everyone had issues. It blocks us from knowing so many truths and it builds in a particular kind of trauma in us, and we grow with it being internalised,” says Yadav.

It seemed like a suicide at first glance, and some started speculating foul play. But nobody had a clue that they were in for something so atrocious that even their wildest dreams would fall short by a considerable margin. When the story broke, the nation was hooked to their TV sets, waiting for updates. A decade earlier, the Nithari serial murder case and the Arushi Talwar murder case had the same effect. Police-procedurals and crime dramas remain a go-to favourite for many on the various OTT streaming platforms.

He told the family that they needed to hang themselves in a specific manner that was said to him by his deceased father. Once they hang themselves, it would be a matter of minutes before the water kept in a pot would turn red, and they all would survive the ritual. And guess what, each and every member actually believed that they would survive this act of hanging themselves as the deceased father would himself come to the rescue.