The teaser of Sony LIV’s upcoming series The Whistleblower is out. The series is inspired by events around the 2013 Vyapam scam. This is the second SonyLIV series to document a real scam after Harshad Mehta’s Scam 1992.
Ritwik Bhowmik of Bandish Bandits fame will play the lead role. The teaser starts with a bruised Ritwik sitting on a chair waiting for Sonali Kulkarni’s nod to reveal the tale of the scam. “Kaha se shuru karu mai? (Where should I start from?)” he says.
Paper cuttings of the PMT Scam are shown in the teaser and it is clear that the series will address different aspects of the education scam. It also shows politicians and other prominent personalities involved in the scam.
The Vyapam scam was an education racket in Madhya Pradesh that was exposed in 2013. It revealed an entire system involving journalists, politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen employing proxies to appear for medical-seat examinations and supplying forged answer sheets by bribing officials. There were nearly 1,700 arrests and more than 50 unnatural deaths in connection with the case.
The trailer ends with a punchline: “Education ek aisi field hai jisko business se hamesha door rakhna chahiye (Education is one field that should always stay away from business).”
The series is written by Ajay Monga and directed by Manoj Pillai. Besides the Bandish Bandits actor, the series features Ravi Kishan, Sonali Kulkarni and Ankita Sharma. The date of its release on SonyLIV has not yet been announced.
Ritwik shared the news with his fans with his social media post where he shared the trailer and captioned it “Brace yourself”.
The actor is noted for his roles in Cargo (2019) and Dhuusar (2019), too.
This is SonyLIV’s second attempt on a scam-related story after Hansal Mehta’s highly rated ‘Scam 1992’ that released last year.
The series, which was adapted from journalist Sucheta Dalal and Debashish Basu’s 1992 book The Scam: Who Won, Who Lost, Who Got Away, was based on the Indian stock market scam of 1992.
