Three years ago, when writer-director Manish Gupta wrote Rahasya , he visualised the film to be a murder mystery that the audience could relate to. What he hadn’t visualised was the controversy and being mired in a legal hurdle. Rahasya revolves around an urban couple in Mumbai and their teenaged daughter, who is murdered in her sleep. Suspicion and allegations quickly fall on the father.

The 39-year-old Gupta, who grew up on a healthy diet of Agatha Christie novels, says murder mysteries inspired him to write Rahasya . But even before the film’s release, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, who are serving a life sentence for the murder of their daughter Aarushi, feel that the movie is based on them. The producer, UVI Film, got a notice from the Bombay High Court after the Talwars filed a petition alleging that the movie would paint them in the wrong light and be defamatory.

Gupta doesn’t think so. “I wrote it almost three years ago. The judgment was passed last year. It is fiction with no resemblance to any real character,” he says. He argues that his film focuses on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officer who investigates and solves the case. Gupta even made several trips to the CBI office in Mumbai to help him flesh out the character of the CBI officer, played by Kay Kay Menon. Also starring Tisca Chopra, Ashish Vidyarthi, Mita Vashisht and Ashwini Kalsekar, the murder mystery film has been cleared by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

Gupta is known for making films inspired by headlines. The Stoneman Murders (2009) was based on serial killings that shocked Bombay in the early ’80s, and Hostel (2011) dealt with the terrors of ragging.

An engineering graduate, Gupta says Ram Gopal Varma’s Company (2002) prompted him to switch from advertising to films. “I can never relate to the Sooraj Barjatya or Karan Johar style of making films. But Ram Gopal Varma’s films brought in a revolution in Indian cinema and I was affected by it,” says Gupta, who has also directed Darna Zaroori Hai (2006).

Confident about the director’s style, the cast has no reservations about Rahasya . “The story is very interesting. That’s why I agreed. There might be one or two similarities with the case, but it’s a completely fictionalised murder mystery,” says Chopra, who essays the role of the mother.

Ashish Vidyarthi plays the father and is unperturbed by the petition, saying, “In most murder cases, the obvious suspects are the near and dear. This is nothing new. It’s a whodunit plot with many twists and turns.”

Gupta admits that he followed the Aarushi Talwar murder case very closely through newspapers and TV, but insists the film’s plot is his own. Having started his Bollywood career as the writer of Sarkar (2005), he is no stranger to controversy, as people quickly drew parallels between the lead character ‘Sarkar’ and the Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray.

“We are not inhuman to cash in on such a sensitive case. We completely understand what the Talwar family is going through. We never intended to hurt their feelings,” Gupta says, adding that controversies will not stop him from broaching realistic subjects. As he awaits the court verdict, Gupta hopes the cloud over Rahasya will clear and the film will reach its audience.

(The writer is a Delhi-based freelance journalist)

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