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Aneet Padda delivers a deeply affecting act in Hunkkaar as a 17-year-old rape victim. But Fatima Sana Shaikh gets shortchanged as Aneet’s character arc dominates the narrative.
Hunkkaar: The Roar starring Fatima Sana Shaikh and Aneet Padda is all set to premiere on JioHotstar on September 25.
Hunkkaar: The RoarA
4/5
Starring: Fatima Sana Shaikh, Aneet Padda, Raghubir Yadav, Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub, Arjun Mathur, Rajesh Sharma, Zoya Hussain and Charu ShankarDirector: Nitya Mehra and Karan D KapadiaPlatform: JioHotstar
Hunkkaar Web Series Review: Hard-hitting. Gut-wrenching. Infuriating. And distressing. That’s Hunkkaar: The Roar in a nutshell. The series opens on a soft-focus yet deeply disturbing sequence of a young girl, identifiable by a distinctive teeka on her forehead, being sexually assaulted. She groans in pain, barely conscious and unable to scream. The tone of the narrative is set almost immediately.
The action immediately shifts to Kharganj police station in Madhya Pradesh. 17-year-old Meenu Rawat is accompanied by her parents to report that she has been raped by Baap Ji, a godman. We learn that she studies in a gurukul in Saburi Fort, which houses Baap Ji’s ashram. After she falls sick in the school assembly, she’s taken to a house to rest up.
Upon waking up, she feels herself being inappropriately touched by Baap Ji under the pretext of ‘shaktidaan’. He then bathes her, wiping away every trace of evidence that could implicate him. As she insists on filing an FIR on grounds of POCSO, a male cop gaslights her into believing that she’s simply confused, telling her that she doesn’t remember the episode because she was unwell.
That’s when ACP Jasleen Singh enters the picture. No-nonsense, unyielding and stoic, Jasleen takes it upon herself to bring down the godman and get Meenu justice. But their fight isn’t just against Baap Ji. It’s against his entire coterie that includes his attendant Shivani and his eccentric son Kashyap, and the town filled with his disciples. And for Meenu, the battle is far more personal.
She has to contend not just with the trauma of what happened to her, but also with the shame, guilt and fear that follow in its wake. Helping Meenu and her family along the way is Amitabh Sinha, a fearless journalist, who wouldn’t rest before exposing Baap Ji and a lawyer named Babbanrao Bhalerao, who also battles a complicated relationship with his overachiever father at home.
Showrunner-director Nitya Mehra and co-director Karan D Kapadia make sure that Hunkkaar isn’t just about police and judicial proceedings. Yes, there’s lots of it, but what forms the core of this narrative is Meenu and her family – their grief, their helplessness. What Hunkkaar gets particularly right is its dissection of the shame that society so casually places on a rape survivor.
The series understands that Meenu’s ordeal doesn’t end with the assault. In many ways, that’s when another battle begins. She has to fight to be believed, navigate victim-blaming and constantly prove that she’s not responsible for what happened to her. A seemingly innocuous act like stepping out for pani puri becomes ammunition against her when a reel of her is circulated online.
Strangers slut-shame her for being out after the assault. Even her appearance becomes a subject of scrutiny, with someone asking how a woman they deem ugly could possibly be raped. These moments are deliberately ugly but that ugliness serves a purpose. Hunkkaar holds up an uncomfortable mirror to a society that often scrutinises a survivor’s behaviour and appearance instead of the perpetrator’s actions.
At one point in the first episode, Meenu’s father tells her over dinner not to make a mountain out of a molehill, warning that it could bring shame and unnecessary attention to the family. He’s visibly torn between protecting his daughter and his devotion to the godman, and yet, his choice of words is painfully understandable in a society where family honour is often placed above a woman’s trauma.
Soon after, a teary-eyed Meenu repeatedly asks him one devastating question: does he believe her? It’s in moments that Hunkkaar hits hardest. There’s no melodrama, just the crushing pain of a young woman realising that even the people she expects to stand by her are struggling to see her before they see the shame attached to what happened to her.
Hunkkaar also takes aim at the deeply entrenched idea that a woman must be chaste to be considered worthy of belief or sympathy. Following her medical examination when no evidence of outrage is found on her, a cop comes to her father and asks him to not worry as his daughter has been proven ‘shuddh’.
Meenu’s character is relentlessly put on trial, with classmates and even teachers resurrecting rumours about her drinking, her supposed ‘history of promiscuity’ and her rebellious streak as though any of these things could somehow invalidate her account of sexual assault. The implication is chilling – a woman’s sexual history, behaviour or willingness to defy convention is treated as evidence against her.
The makers deserve credit for their intricate exploration of how quickly society shifts the scrutiny from the perpetrator to the survivor, demanding that she first prove her purity before she is deemed deserving of justice. And that’s why Hunkkaar makes for an urgent watch. Each episode here unravels at a languorous pace, that works in its favour.
You’re given enough time to take a gulp, taste the bitterness, sit with it and then brace yourself for the next disturbing thing. Even while dealing with police procedures, legal exchanges between lawyers and the murky nexus between godmen and blind faith, the makers ensure that the narrative never becomes mechanical.
The investigation isn’t merely a device to move the story from one revelation to another. It becomes a way of examining the systems, people and beliefs that allow such abuse to thrive. The series also resists the temptation to paint every character in broad strokes. There is room for contradiction, complicity and moral discomfort, which makes the world feel lived-in rather than constructed.
Even its exploration of faith is more layered than a simple binary of believers versus sceptics. This attention to the grey areas gives the series an unsettling authenticity and prevents what could have been a straightforward crime drama from becoming a predictable good-versus-evil narrative. As for the actors, their performances help elevate an already brilliant screenplay.
Spearheading the series is Aneet Padda, who delivers a deeply affecting and outstanding performance as Meenu. The writers refuse to reduce her to the trauma she has endured. There’s a brokenness to her but also the spirit of a young girl who still wants to experience life, laugh, step out and simply be young. She captures that contradiction beautifully.
The pain and anger in her eyes are palpable, often doing more than her dialogues. But it’s in the final sequence when Meenu takes the witness stand and delivers a poignant, heart-wrenching monologue that she truly comes into her own. The scene is tear-jerking and much of that impact comes from the rawness she brings to it. It’s a performance that lingers long after the show ends.
Fatima Sana Shaikh, however, gets somewhat shortchanged because of how completely Aneet’s character arc dominates the narrative. That said, there are moments when she shines, bringing a quiet restraint and emotional control to her performance. Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub slips effortlessly into the skin of the unassuming Bhalerao, bringing a disarming sincerity to the character.
In moments of helplessness, you genuinely feel for him. Arjun Mathur too deserves praise for his portrayal of Amitabh, bringing an unyielding resolve to his performance. Rajesh Sharma and Charu Shankar as Meenu’s parents do a fantastic job too. Zoya Hussain plays Shivani as a complicated enigma, making her both intriguing and unpredictable. Her malevolence will unsettle you.
And then there’s Raghubir Yadav, who plays Baap Ji. He refuses to play the character like a conventional villain. There’s an unnerving calmness to his act, a quiet assurance that makes him all the more evil. There is no need for theatrics. His composure itself becomes menacing and that makes his depravity even more infuriating. This is a classic case of against-the-grain casting.
After spending years playing a slew of endearing characters, he weaponises that familiarity to make Baap Ji even more unsettling. Hunkkaar is a difficult watch. It doesn’t merely tell a story about sexual violence. It forces us to confront the uncomfortable ecosystem of silence, shame, blind faith and victim-blaming that allows it to persist. This is a conversation worth having.
Quick Answers
Ask News18Hunkkaar: The Roar is a six-part crime and legal thriller that premiered on Jio Hotstar on September 25, 2026. The narrative follows Meenu Rawat, a 17-year-old girl in Kharganj, Madhya Pradesh, who files a police complaint accusing a powerful spiritual leader named Baap Ji of sexual assault. Alongside an uncompromising ACP named Jasleen Singh, a fearless journalist, and a lawyer, Meenu fights not only the godman and his followers but also societal victim-blaming and scrutiny.
Ask News18About the Author
Titas Chowdhury is a Special Correspondent at News18 Showsha. She writes about cinema, music and gender in cinema. Interviewing actors and filmmakers, writing about latest trends in showbiz and bringi…Read More
September 25, 2026, 06:42 IST
