The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case — A Gritty, Grounded Retelling That Gets Under Your Skin

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Bengaluru: We’ve seen plenty of content over the years around the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi—news specials, documentaries, half-baked thrillers that either sensationalised the event or rushed through it. But Sony LIV’s latest offering, The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case, directed by Nagesh Kukunoor, does something most of its predecessors failed to do: it gives space to the silence, the slowness, the fatigue, and the fragility that comes with chasing a truth as heavy as this.

What makes this series a standout is not just the story it tells, but the manner in which it chooses to tell it. There are no monologues, no manipulative flashbacks, and no forced moments of grandeur. The show begins moments during the fatal blast on May 21, 1991, and without wasting time, immerses us into the machinery of investigation—the chaos, the phone calls, the command centres, and the orders from above that followed the country’s shock.

Amit Sial plays D.R. Kaarthikeyan with a kind of worn-out steadiness that’s refreshing to watch. His portrayal isn’t loud or heroic; it’s deeply human. He’s a man burdened with bureaucracy and expectation, but also deeply committed to the pursuit of truth. Shafeeq Mustafa’s Sivarasan, the key LTTE operative, is portrayed with cold precision. What makes the character chilling is not violence, but calmness. He’s strategic, emotionless, and knows he’s being hunted.

The show builds itself like a quiet documentary disguised as a thriller. It moves at a pace that mirrors real-world investigations. There are delays. There are detours. There’s bureaucracy and tension and long periods of frustrating quiet. At times, it even feels like nothing is moving—until you realise that’s exactly how the investigators must have felt. The drama here is in the details—in the handwritten letters, the photographs, the intercepted audio tapes, and the eyes of men and women who are trying to build a case that will stand on its own in history.

Much of the action is based in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, particularly Bengaluru, where the manhunt reaches its boiling point. The Konanakunte raid, a defining sequence in the series, is one of the most gripping climaxes seen in recent Indian OTT storytelling. What’s fascinating is how Nagesh Kukunoor stages it—not with stylised gunfire, but with dread, stillness, and the waiting. Officers sit in tents. Orders come late. Decisions hang in the air. The pressure is internal, psychological, and the result is unnerving.

Visually, the show recreates 1991 with an almost obsessive commitment to detail. The rotary phones, the old Ambassadors, the crackling intercoms, the tapes, the files—they all speak to an India that was in transition. The production design does not scream nostalgia, but places you in rooms where history was being written with pen ink and cigarette smoke. The dialogues switch between Hindi, Tamil, and English, and never feel contrived. That regional fluidity is essential to the narrative, and is handled with authenticity.

One of the most admirable choices Kukunoor makes as a director is to stay away from political speculation. There’s no commentary on systemic failures, no rewriting of motive, and no blame-shifting. This is a procedural. It is a retelling based on a real investigation. It doesn’t indulge in what-ifs or revisionist history. And in a country where fact and fiction are often blurred for entertainment, this restraint is more than welcome—it’s necessary.

The show does take its time to unfold. Viewers used to fast-paced crime thrillers might find the initial episodes slow. But give it time. Once you settle into its rhythm, the pace becomes a strength. It allows the audience to feel the investigation—the leads that don’t go anywhere, the suspects who disappear, the long hours without answers. It places us inside the minds of people working under extreme pressure, and it does so without glamorising their jobs.

The supporting cast—Sahil Vaid as Amit Verma, Bagavathi Perumal as K. Ragothaman, Girish Sharma as Radhavinod Raju, Abhishek Shankar as Pakkiriswamy Chandra Sekharan, Danish Iqbal as Amod Kant, Vidyut Gargi as Ravindran—do well to bring weight to their roles without overpowering the central narrative. No one here is a sidekick or a filler. Each performance contributes to the layered tension the show holds from start to finish.

In a year flooded with content, The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case stands out because of its clarity of purpose. It doesn’t try to be too clever. It doesn’t add fiction for the sake of engagement. It simply asks you to listen closely and pay attention. And in doing so, it manages to be one of the most engaging pieces of true-crime storytelling in recent Indian OTT history.

This is a series that reminds us what investigative work actually looks like. It’s slow, repetitive, often unrewarding, and filled with uncertainty. But when it leads to a breakthrough, the impact is seismic. Watching this series is like witnessing that process, one step at a time. It’s not always easy, but it’s always worth it.

The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case is not a spectacle. It’s a reminder. Of what it takes to find the truth. And what it costs to carry it.