Is OTT going too far with violence? Increase in OTT-influenced murders raise concerns

Guwahati, Nov 17: In a bone-chilling incident from Delhi, a man aged 28 years from Chhatarpur area was arrested by the Delhi Police on Monday, November 14, when he confessed to murdering his long-time live-in partner and girlfriend, Shraddha Walker, whose body was chopped into 35 pieces, after she was strangled to death.

According to reports, the murderer, identified as, Aftab Ameen Poonawalla, a food vlogger, allegedly stored the chopped body parts in a 300 litre refrigerator and later scattered them in various locations of Delhi's Mehrauli forest in a span of 18 days to escape arrest.

As per Delhi Police officials, the accused has confessed lately to seeking inspiration from the American crime series "Dexter" featuring Michael. C. Hall who is a forensics expert but leads a parallel life as a vigilante serial killer. In fact, it has also been found that he Googled ways of clearing blood stains after committing the barbaric act.

In a similar incident on August 26, 2022, a Pune-based man named Santosh Shinde killed his former girlfriend's husband in a hope to reconcile with the woman. Reports claimed that the man committed the crime after watching several crime-based web series, movies, and television serials.

The frequent occurrence of incidents as such lead to rise in question among readers that, are crime-based content on Over The Top (OTT) platforms or films and TV serials acting as an impulse in affecting psychology of viewers to some extent?

This has been best explained by Dr. Sangeeta Datta, a Guwahati-based consultant neuropsychiatrist, "The particular murder case in Delhi are some of the cases which got detected by chance. I'm sure there are many crimes which are happening undercover. I am sure people out there commit a lot of crime which go unnoticed because they are smart enough to outsmart the police, the judiciary and the legal system."

The doctor, when asked about the difference between criminals from other human beings said, "The answer for this would be both yes and no. Yes, because normal people cannot commit crimes as such."

"Why no? As in generally, if someone goes through a break-up, the person usually goes through a process of grief for a period of time and moves on but we also have to understand that there are people with different mindsets who look at these issues very differently and go ahead to commit crimes as such," she further explained.

Dr. Datta also discussed that a person in recent times does not have to go through psychological problems like conduct disorder or antisocial personality disorder to commit crimes and does not necessarily need to have a bad past record to commit such a crime. The criminal might belong from a well-to-do family possessing good educational qualification.

She further analysed that, " In case of this particular murder case we need to understand that the couple was in a live-in relationship and people have relationship or convenience, which can be biological, physical, mental, and economic. The couple started to live-in for their convenience. But it can be well understood that the man never wanted to marry for his convenience and to him killing her seemed easy."

Gruesome crimes as such have also occurred in the past when there existed no such content on television or films. It was when in 2010 a man from Dehradun killed his wife after smothering her with a pillow and later used a saw to cut her into 70 pieces and similarly stored her in the freezer.

The wife was killed as she suspected her husband to have an alleged extra-marital affair with a lady in Kolkata. Later, the person was prosecuted with a life sentence and a fine of Rs 5 lakhs.

However, in Aftab's case, it has been observed that he has been exposed to toxic mental food in the form of crime serials and web series, which made him insensitive to turn his plan see the day-light.

Dr Datta lastly opined that it is important that we reconstruct our own way of looking at things because to commit a crime a person certainly does not need to have a clinical history of mental disorder. There are millions of sources or inputs to source a crime, where internet can be one.

It is because people who are overexposed to the inputs available on the internet or television, will naturally grow up to be people who will live their life of convenience, but once faced with inconvenience, they might turn out to be the most dreadful of all criminals.

So, does this bring out a conclusion that we should keep a check on the kind of content being available on the internet? Or, should we consider content on OTT or television to be one of the reasons for increasing crime rate in the country?