Mumbai Mafia: Police vs the Underworld

Documentary gives us the brief insight into the world of 90s Mumbai Mafia and police encounters to neutralize the organized crime syndicate . Unbiased view towards the issue was the major positive of the documentary , at first it explores the rise of D Company and how cruel they were , which caused chaos in streets of Mumbai , to neutralize them cops chose the violence in which they ended up exploiting their authority , same time it shows how annoying and opportunistic the media are . Docu mostly shows the cops side of the story and how they became heroes of the country by encountering the criminals and at end how they became villians for there fake encounters .

Overall , documentary discusses the known incidents and facts that took place in two decades in 1hr 30mins . If you have less idea about the D Company crime syndicate and police encountering that took place in 90s and early 2ks of Mumbai then kindly give it a try . Worth watching .

Engaging narrative of how the underworld activities in the 90s were successfully curbed using "encounter specialists", but at the same time the documentary grapples with the question whether these encounter specialists went too far and took the law in their own hands by staging so called "fake encounters".

These specialists argue that irrespective of whether the encounters were staged or genuine, the end result was a dead criminal who in a normal scenarios would get bail if jailed and will be out on the streets terrorising people.

On the flip side, human rights activists argue that the dead criminals missed an opportunity to reform and lead a positive life.

At the end of the day, politicians were happy for encounters to take place while the crime rate was being brought under control but once it was controlled they had to sacrifice some of these so called encounter specialists to pacify the western governments and human rights organisations.

Would Mumbai have ended up as a terror state had it not been for the encounter specialists? No doubt there was collateral damage, but was it worth it ? Only a person living in fear in Mumbai in the 90s would know, and probably agree.

Mumbai mafia:police vs the underworld is a crime documentary film directed by raaghav dar and francis longhurst.

This docu does many things right and some things wrong. The police and their functioning is basically the centerstage here. Ravindra angre, pradeep sharma and all the other members of the encounter squad are interviewed and their views are thoroughly shown. They are unapologetic but also remorseful at the same time. 'Nobody likes to kill people' is what one police officer says. AA khan resigns even. This docu does humanize the police officials in a controversial encounter story. The gangsters are hardly focused upon. Dawood's background is touched and not detailed. Minty tejpal and hussain zaidi make appearances here and it was an honour to listen to them.

The screenplay during the bombay blast aftermath becomes slow in the first half. It shifts attention and loses its grip.

I would rate this docu 8.5.

Mumbai is the financial capital of India and one of major cities globally. It is fascinating that someone controlled mumbai and taxed others in addition to Govt just a few decades ago.

Don't expect it to be a movie but it is a good documentary on Mumbai history and some key events which happened in 1990s. I was too young then and this is a perfect history chapter for me I needed.

It shows the rise of mafia and how police has curbed down on mafia but then slowly how police started to show power and then slowly eventually there was an equilibrium.

Fun fact: the word "encounter" was in fact Indian English.

People who would be watching a Netflix docu are mostly young people who either were too young during the encounter days or weren't even born yet. So for most of its viewers its a history lesson. A unbiased history lesson.

Mumbai was growing rapidly, law and order wasn't growing at the same pace, opportunity for crime was increasing day by day.

In 90s A few key incidents happened which shook people of Mumbai and made police desperate to maintain law and order

This desperation resulted into police becoming the law enforcement, the judge and the punisher, and if they found you guilty, then the punishment was DEATH.

Was it morally right? No, did it bring peace for Mumbai? Yes.

This docu shows how it started, how it happened and what was the aftermath.

For me the best part was real interviews of key people involved.

Definitely worth a watch for everyone regardless their opinion on the topic.