After the Thalayolaparambu murder case hit the headlines, many people could not but notice the striking similarity it had to the climax scene of 2013 blockbuster, Drishyam. Jeethu Joseph, who scripted and directed the film, says apart from the fact that the body was supposedly buried under a building, the rest of the elements of the alleged murder cannot be compared with that in his film.
“In fact, my character – Lalettan’s George Kutty decided to bury the body of Varun Prabhakar under the police station building, as he was well aware that the within a day the station would start functioning. But in this recent case, as I read in the papers, when the culprit buried the victim’s body, no building was under construction and it was years later that this particular building got made there,” says the writer-director, who also feels that this case can be considered as a reply to those who criticised him while his film got released.
“Many people including some big shots criticised the film saying that it may encourage criminals to follow this modus operandi and it can negatively inspire people. See, this particular incident must have happened years before I directed Drishyam. That means a similar crime had occurred long before I showed it through my cinema,” he says. “I do not say that cinema won’t influence or inspire people. Even books and news reports can give ideas to people. Hope you remember an incident in which the body parts of a victim were burnt at a tandoor. I came to know about that incident through newspapers like all of you.”
He recollects that in the first draft of the Drishyam’s screenplay, the burial under the police station did not figure. “Initially my plan was to show him hiding the body at a ground where the meeting of Georgekutty and the victim’s parents happened. Later I decided to make it more interesting and reworked the script. Around that time, I did an advertisement on Janamythri police station and came to know more about them. In fact, that was when this idea struck me,” he remembers.
