Police officer Ramakant Kulkarni is in the middle of conducting a training programme in Mumbai when he is dispatched to a small town in Maharashtra to investigate a brutal case. Even after Ramakant arrives in Manvat to look into the killings of seven girls and women, his professorial manner never leaves him. Manvat’s squad is keen on learning new strategies from this storied officer, who prefers psychological tactics to extracting the truth from suspects with brute force.
Ramakant retains his aura even when his approach starts to look plodding and random, rather than patient and precise. Ramakant’s methodical manner drives the plotting of the Sony LIV show Manvat Murders, rather than the chilling crime itself. Over eight episodes, director Ashish Bende and writer Girish Joshi present a police procedural that emphases the value of old-fashioned deduction and legwork.
Manvat Murders is based on an actual case and real-life characters . The Marathi show revisits a killing spree between 1972 and 1974 that involved human sacrifice and blood rituals. Ramakant Kulkarni headed the investigation, and later documented his experiences in his 2004 memoir Footprints on the Sands of Crime.
Manvat Murders (2024). Courtesy Storyteller’s Nook/Sony LIV. In the fictionalised version, Ashutosh Gowariker plays Ramakant as the brain-over-brawn cop keen to separate fact from conspiracy theory.
Ramakant’s mission puts him in conflict with the powerful landlord Uttamrao (Makarand Anaspure), U.