Jail is no joke. The trailer of Vikramaditya Motwane and Sudhanshu Singh’s upcoming prison-drama series Black Warrant was released on Friday. The show, a dramatised adaptation of the book Black Warrant: Confessions of a Tihar Jailer by Sunil Gupta and Sunetra Choudhury, features Zahan Kapoor (Faraaz, 2022) in the lead along with Rahul Bhat (Kennedy, 2023), Sidhant Gupta (Jubilee, 2023), Paramvir Singh Cheema and Anurag Thakur, among others.
The trailer introduces us to a young and timid Sunil Kumar Gupta (Zahaan), who, against the wishes of his mother, takes up the gruelling job of a prison warden at Tihar Jail. His no-nonsense boss is Rajesh Tomar, a volatile cop played by Rahul Bhat. Sunil also has two colleagues Dahiya and Mangat. The trailer gives us a glimpse of this fish-out-of-water narrative where a meek boy strives to survive in the treacherous world of the country’s biggest jail. There are also hat-tips to real-life cases, like in a scene Sunil reads a news article about the Ranga-Billa murders. In another, Sidhant Gupta, sporting a mullet and wearing horn-rimmed glasses, in a heavy English accent asks Sunil if he knows who he is. Charles Sobhraj?
Talking about the series, Vikramaditya said, “Black Warrant has offered us the opportunity to explore a world that’s often hidden from view—one that’s tough, complicated, and full of contradictions. Sunil’s journey through Tihar Jail provided a unique perspective like no other to capture that complexity. The trailer is just a glimpse of how the series will peel back the layers of a world that is as brutal as it is complex as it is fun.”
Black Warrant has been presented by Applause Entertainment and is an Andolan Production in association with Confluence Media. The show starts streaming on Netflix from January 10.
