Dhananjoy-starrer docu retrieved from closet

MUMBAI: The Dhananjoy Chatterjee case has another Mumbai angle. A city-based filmmaker has the only interview given by Dhananjoy, who faces the capital punishment for raping and murdering Kolkata schoolgirl Hetal Parekh 14 years ago.
The filmmaker, 35-year-old Amit Rai, produced the docudrama featuring Dhananjoy almost a decade ago. He roped in noted director M.S.Sathyu for the documentary.
"But the moment I said ''documentary'' series, channels were not interested," says Rai. As a result, the Dhananjoy tape lay unaired until June 24 when a TV channel picked it up. Rai met Dhananjoy five times for his project.
He picked the Dhananjoy case for the pilot episode because he was New Delhi when the judgment was delivered.
"The case was fresh and I wanted the pilot episode to deal with capital punishment," says Rai, who was then fresh out of Bangalore University with a degree in engineering.
But red tape almost put paid to his enthusiasm. "Initially we were fobbed off with the excuse that the matter is subjudice. The matter dragged on for nine months and I moved SC for permission to interview Dhananjoy."
Rai, who is opposed to the capital punishment, managed a 25-minute capsule of Dhananjoy''s interview. Rai asked him questions about the case, his wife and his ambitions.Dhananjoy,who wanted to join the Services, was married for 15 days when the incident occurred on March 5, 1990.
"He refused to admit to the crime, and made many claims against the police," says Rai.
However, the main difficulty for Rai as far as canning the episode was interviewing Dhananjoy''s family. "They got frightened on seeing our team."
Only on their third visit did the family agree to be shot. Rai questions the need for capital punishment.
"If his crime was premotivated, it is surprising that he left a trail of evidence. Why did Dhananjoy have to tell the gatekeeper that he was going to the Parekh residence to make a call to his boss? He could have just taken the stairs. Moreover, when his boss called for him from downstairs, he appeared on the Parekhs'' balcony just minutes after he reportedly committed the crime," says Rai.