Sitting numb at the end of this deeply disturbing film on female infanticide, Kajarya, I was informed that 10 million girls have been killed in our country since the 1980s. Director Madhureeta Anand has our attention by force. She does not allow audiences the luxury to flinch or turn away.

Perhaps because what the film portrays doesn’t quite go beyond the newspaper headlines, there are no new insights, perspectives to enlighten, added to what you already know nor is there anything to jolt you. Perhaps we have become too inured. Or may be the film needed to be more intense than it has turned out.

Ruhil makes a fine weasly villain, who is using Kajarya for his own ends, and the movie has its share of corpulent police officers and cold-hearted editors. It’s a grim watch, but then female foeticide is never easy to confront.