“DRISH YAM”

GROUP 3/ SECTION 4
MEMBERS:

Balahig, Aprilyn
Baguingan, Karen
Beltran, Jamaica
Casil, Trixie
Diozon, Michael Glenn
Foroble, Ian Renz
Lorenzo, John Brian Rogel
Seangoy, Keith

SUBMITTED TO:
Ma’am Jholeybeth P. Anudon

GROUP REFLECTION:

This murder, mystery movie centers on a family who can do whatever it takes to hide their
biggest secret from being exposed. Vijay Salgaonkar, a fourth-grade dropout, a cable operator
but on the other hand, a loving father who will do anything to protect his family, his wife is
Nandini Salgaonkar, a loving mother to her 2 children, Anju Salgaonkar, the eldest and Anu
Salgaonkar, the youngest child. This movie is all about the mystery of Sameer Deshmukh’s
murder, the only son of Mahesh Deshmukh and Inspector General Meera Deshmukh and to
what extent can the family lie on the crime they have committed to Sam. In addition to this,
Police officers including Laxmikant Gaitonde, a corrupt police who's known for extorting people
for money, Inspector Vinayak Sawant, and Sr. Police Inspector Shrikant Prabhu are the ones
leading the investigation.

Vijay is fan of watching crimes and drama movies which greatly influence him, since he knew
about concepts of habeas corpus or fundamental right in the Constitution that protects against
unlawful and indefinite imprisonment from crime movies he’s watching, Vijay then executed a
step-by-step plan for them to be unsuspected on the investigations and save his family from
going to jail. He taught his family how to answer interrogations and to stick with their version of
events no matter what.

The crime was committed when Anju unintentionally killed Sam because he blackmailed and
forced Anju to do a favor in return of deleting her video. Vijay after knowing the situation,
decided to bury Sam’s body and clean the traces of evidence with the help of his wife and
daughter, their ultimate goal is to hide the truth.
 Their fear has come when Sam’s car is discovered and the investigation started. Unfortunately,
Gaitonde saw Vijay entering and driving Sam’s car, which made him and his family the prime
suspect of the investigation, but with their perfect lies and alibis, they tricked the police and
Sam’s father into believing they are innocent

In the case of the witnesses, they were manipulated to tell the family’s version of events
through visual tactics used by Vijay in order for them to keep it in their mind and believe that
Vijay and their family went to Panjim on a specific day and time. In their interviews they were
certain that the information they were telling the police is the truth because they have been
tricked and influenced by Vijay and his family into making their side of the story aligned with
the family’s statement of the event but in contrary the family really went to Panjim on the 4 th
and 5th day. Sam’s mother, IG Meera on the other hand is not satisfied about all their lies and
excuses and later on figured out how Vijay and his family planned all the alibis they told the
investigators, from the receipts and tickets they showed up to the witnesses who testified for
them as a proof that their family went to Panjim for a visit. She found out Vijay’s visual tactic
and the step-by-step plans he made in order to hide the truth. IG Meera then used torture as a
way for Vijay and his family to reveal the truth.

The methods used by the police to extract statements from the witnesses are interrogation of
each Salgaonkar family member, interview of the witnesses and the illegal torture is also used.
Physical Evidence which was collected from the witness are logbooks, CCTV footage and they
also used tracking methods in finding Sam’s phone information. Evidence collected from the
primary suspects are receipts and tickets from their trip to Panjim. The methods used by the
police like interrogation, interview and gathering of evidence is legal but the use of torture to
extract the truth from Vijay’s family is illegal. It is clear from the movie that the family is not
telling the truth and they were taught by Vijay to stick with their statements no matter what.
From the tactics used by Vijay, the best memory is visuals which is used by him to influence the
witnesses’ mind and making their statements in favor of Vijay’s side.

The best evidence is from the movie’s title itself, Drishyam meaning a scene or a visual, though
this evidence is not admissible in court so they had no enough proof to convict Vijay as the
primary suspect in Sameer's death, it portrayed in the movie that a visual memory can be used
to manipulate someone’s mind and use it to hide or tell the truth. Direct denial is used by Vijay
in the scene where he was interrogated about the whereabouts of Sam , he tells the police that
he don’t know where Sam is, in addition to direct denial, lying by omission is also used by Vijay
and his family when they told the police that they went for a visit to Panjim on the day Sam
went missing but in reality they went to Panjim on the 4th day and stayed there until the 5th day
after they committed the crime to gather tickets and receipts as well as manipulate the
witnesses on thinking they were there in the 2nd and 3rd day. On the interrogation process
bluffing is used by the police to trick Vijay’s family into telling the truth by stating that each
family has said different version of the events but they failed obtain the truth from the family.
After watching this movie, we figured out that people lie based on their morals and beliefs of
what is right and wrong, just like Vijay, he believes that her daughter is the victim because he
unintentionally hit Sam for the reason of deleting her video but ended up killing him, Vijay did
what he knew is right to protect their family. In the interrogation process of the movie,
Polygraph is not used because it is not admissible to the court of the Indian Government, the
Supreme Court Bench comprising then Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan and Justices R V
Raveendran and J M Panchal in the 2010 case ruled that no lie detector tests should be
administered “except on the basis of consent of the accused”. In the Philippines computerized
lie detector or polygraph is an accurate and delicately engineered instrument that records
blood pressure, blood volume, pulse rate, sweating and breathing used for investigation,
honesty check and pre-employment screening. Polygraph results are not admissible in the
Philippine courts as well.

If we were in the same situation like Vijay and Nandini, we would not do the same thing that
they did, instead, we will report it to the authorities immediately. When our future daughter/s
have unintentionally killed someone with the same situation like Anju, there should be a
justifying or exempting circumstances her case because she is driven with an impulse to hit
someone without any intent to kill him. As a future law enforcer, we still believe that the law is
just/fair to everyone.

If we were in the same situation like IG Meera, we would not do the same thing she did, torture
or violence is not the right way to obtain justice. If we were a high-ranking officer like her, we
would follow the right protocols in investigating and obtaining information to a prime suspect.

The Justice System in India follows the common law system based on recorded judicial
precedents as inherited from the British colonial legacy. The court system of India comprises
the Supreme Court of India, the High Courts and subordinate courts at district, municipal and
village levels while the Philippines the justice system is mixed legal system of civil, common,
Islamic, and customary law. The formal system of trials, appeals, and prisons is similar to that of
the United States. Both Indian and Philippines Justice system isn’t perfect, there are corrupt
and abusive officers like Gaitonde and there are cases where officers resort to violence in
extracting the truth and evidence to someone.

There is no perfect crime, there are always loopholes and weaknesses of any crime, a
knowledgeable investigator and police officers is all it takes for a crime to be solved. If Vijay and
his family confessed before they were beaten the police and Sam’s parents will certainly ask
them to show where they buried Sam, we think that Sam’s family will do everything to make
Vijay and his family go to prison. On the other hand, when the family confessed after they were
beaten, same thing will happen for sure because Sam’s parents, specifically his mom is very
furious and angry at that time, what more if she’ll know about what really happened to her son.
Vijay didn’t mock the police department the police department, he just executed his knowledge
from the movies he watched and it was the police department’s fault that they didn’t figure
everything out. Vijay and his family manage to escape imprisonment by sticking to their
versions of event no matter what the police told them, they didn’t raise any suspicion. For the
police department 1st thing that they need to improve is their interrogation techniques, they
should be knowledgeable enough about the methods of interrogation, 2nd is, by the time they
Vijay became the prime suspect, they should immediately conduct search to his house in order
to find traces of evidence which they didn’t do, and lastly the police should not use violence to
any suspect just to reveal the truth.

As a parent in the future, we will nurture our children by raising their awareness about their
safety and protection, we would give them assurance that they should not be scared of anyone
threatening them to do something against their will. Just like what happened to Anju, we would
educate our children to tell us immediately if someone is threatening or blackmailing them so
that we can fix the problem earlier to avoid it from getting worse.

Right when they tracked Sam’s phone, it was switched off at Vijay’s house and then his SIM was
switched on, next morning in Panjim. If Police can trace these locations, Vijay would have to
answer why Sam visited him and why his mobile got switched off there? also Police can travel
on the route, that Sam’s mobile showed up using Sam’s phone records, they can travel the
same route and search for CCTVs. In Panjim, there has to be several areas with CCTVs. Police
can see their recordings to show that Vijay was driving the car. Lastly, Police can use the smell
of Sam’s clothes, Police dogs would easily smell his presence outside Vijay’s house, because
during the time Sam was buried there, his blood, sweat and skin would have mixed with the soil
there.

The moral lessons that we learned from the movie are; Violence is not the way to obtain justice,
give more time to your children to check their character development and well-being, never put
justice in your own hands, always trust your instinct, help others when you can, Protect your
family in a manner that it cannot harm other people, be kind and humble even if you are a high
ranking official, learn from whatever you love doing just like Vijay gathering knowledge from
the movies he is watching, there is no perfect crime, and lastly parents would do anything for
their children.

In conclusion, if we would give another title to this movie, it would be “What Happened to
Sameer Deshmukh?”, because the police and Sam’s parents have no clue at all on the
whereabouts of Sam and the Salgaonkar family is really excellently hiding the truth about what
happened to Sam.