The horrific Ranga-Billa case of 1978 did not just shock Delhi; it altered the way an entire generation of Indians viewed safety, strangers, and childhood itself. Nearly five decades later, the impact of the crime continues to linger in public memory, something that became evident to the cast and makers of Raakh, a new crime drama inspired by the infamous case.
Speaking about the lasting influence of the incident, actor Aamir Bashir recalled how the crime marked a turning point in his own childhood.
“I was a young boy at that time. But yes, it was one of those seminal moments. It was probably the first crime of this magnitude to have such an impact, despite it not being the digital age. I remember, as a young boy, it was like a watershed moment – there was a pre and post, and it was the end of our innocence as well,” he told NDTV.
Bashir added that the case fundamentally changed how children perceived the outside world.
“For a child to grapple with the idea of the outside world being this dangerous, that’s what I remember about it. I remember my mother coming out around dusk onto the streets where we were playing and saying, ‘Come back now. It’s getting dark, come back now.’ This started around 1978-79. I have also spent most of my winters in Delhi from the mid-70s onwards. I have a pretty vivid memory of it.”
Actor Sonali Bendre echoed similar sentiments, saying the tragedy changed parenting and social behaviour across the country.
“Like Aamir was saying, a fear had set in during childhood. It was like, come back at a certain time, or you can’t do this. The main thing was not talking to strangers, not accepting lifts from strangers, and not trusting strangers. These were things that started getting drilled into us,” she said.
According to Bendre, these precautions were not as commonplace before the incident.
“We were told not to talk to them, not to interact with them. This was not the situation earlier. Life was not like that, society was not like that, but it did change the way you looked at strangers.”
The case involved the abduction and murder of two siblings in Delhi and became one of the most widely discussed crimes in India. Long before the age of social media and 24-hour news cycles, the incident gripped the nation and sparked conversations around child safety.
For co-director Anusha Nandakumar, the enduring impact of the case became apparent during her research for Raakh. A conversation with her mother revealed just how deeply the tragedy had embedded itself in the public consciousness.
“When we were doing research for this, I was at home and my mum asked me what I was working on. So I told her it was inspired by this one event and that we were researching it. She remembered the names of the children, not the perpetrators,” Nandakumar said.
She added that her mother, who grew up in Chennai, was the same age as one of the victims at the time.
“She said that’s because the daughter was her age at the time. She is from Chennai. So the fear had travelled from Delhi to Chennai. This was all we spoke about. And it stayed with her. Fifty years later, the moment she heard we were working on that incident, she knew the names and remembered them. What two people had done in Delhi had shaken the nation so much that, 50 years on, people still remember it.”
Raakh, inspired by the events surrounding the Ranga-Billa case, explores the emotional and societal aftermath of a crime that left an indelible mark on India. The series premiered on June 12 on Amazon Prime Video and stars Ali Fazal, Sonali Bendre, and Aamir Bashir in pivotal roles.
