‘Babita Singh Reporting’: Nimisha Sajayan is a Glorious Underdog In This Tenacious Procedural

Babita Singh (Nimisha Sajayan) or ‘Baby’ as colleagues, friends and family call her, is the last person one might look towards to deliver justice. Daughter of a cop who died in the line of duty, Baby was given her father’s job on compassionate grounds. A deputy to a greasy cop, SI Sethi (Rajesh Kumar), who asks her to shoot a ‘reel’ making an entrance on his motorbike in the film’s first scene, Baby would do well to simply hold on to the job.

And yet, by sheer curiosity, she finds herself days away from being a part of on-field investigations, moved from mundane paperwork at the station. It’s unusual because Baby has been raised to be a generous, stoic Indian woman – (relatively) caged in her domestic life, where her agency comes with a million terms and conditions. She willingly subjects herself to patriarchy, like it’s a badge of honour.

Her husband, Sharad (Anshuman Pushkar) runs an electrical appliances shop, and is not the obvious villain we’ve come to expect. He loves her, is supportive, but the way he pressures her is more subtle. For his sister’s baby shower, he badgers her to apply for leave to a point that she’s manipulated by Sethi into accepting a temporary suspension on his behalf.

This is the feature directorial debut of Ambiecka Pandit, who was earlier at the helm of an episode on Black Warrant (2025). Written by Amita Vyas, the film has Sudip Sharma’s fingerprints all over it, serving as an executive producer. His procedurals spanning two franchises: Paatal Lok and Kohrra, on Amazon Prime and Netflix respectively, have set a high bar to probe society with the help of a murder investigation.

Pandit’s film might be operating in familiar territory, but the keen observation in Vyas’s script and a slow-burn central performance by Sajayan elevate a hum-drum procedural into something more.

A still from 'Babita Singh Reporting'. Photo: Screengrab from YouTube

Having agreed to a two-week suspension, which Baby doesn’t tell Sharad about, they leave for Rewa from Bhopal for the baby shower. Being the first time Baby is going to her in-laws’ home, there’s the added pressure of proving herself as a dutiful addition to the family. Baby takes charge like she’s lived in that home for years. Her pregnant sister-in-law, Guddi (Priya Yadav) orders her to bring turmeric-milk at 6 am. The mother-in-law (Sunita Rajwar) prefers the pink shawl Baby bought for her own sister, but Baby graciously lets her have it. They offer to pay for the baby shower function. She takes charge of the kitchen, and the chores around the house.

Sajayan is no stranger to cruelty cloaked in carelessness within the Indian household. She’s already played a similar part in Jeo Baby’s The Great Indian Kitchen (2021). However, over here, she also has the additional responsibility of standing beside a school friend of hers.

Bansi Seni (Barun Sobti), Baby’s school friend, meets them at the railway station in Rewa. He’s given a serial-killer entry, in the manner he sneaks up to Baby, and taps on her shoulder. He looks disturbed. He tells her he'd like to speak to her at length – but given her duties at her in-laws' home, Baby puts it off, and texts him saying she’ll meet him once the baby shower is done. Sobti is impeccable in this scene, especially the way he conveys Bansi’s isolation through body language. “Most friends have left town,” he laments.

The very next day, Bansi is found dead, with a knife wound on his body and possibly lethal head wound near his head. The cops arrest a junkie, whose clothes seem to have Bansi’s blood on them.

When Sharad and Baby go to his funeral service, something about it doesn’t quite fit. Having just about studied police work before joining the on-field investigation team, Baby spots some gaps. Guided by her curiosity, Baby starts asking questions here and there, trying to piece together what really happened. It takes place through a vast array of people, including a local shopkeeper, who tells her about how Bansi had become an irritable person, picking fights with people in full public view.

A still from 'Babita Singh Reporting'. Photo: Screengrab from YouTube

Bansi’s classmate, Archana (Muskan Arora), wife Rupa (Priyanka Setia), brother Mangal (Nitin Goel), Sharad’s uncle – a business rival of Bansi’s, all show up on Baby’s list of witnesses, as she tries to find out the truth of Bansi’s last few days.

Sajayan is a glorious underdog, showcasing Baby’s inexperience, naivete, and rawness as she goes about questioning the people around Bansi. As she finds her feet as a detective, the more she’s able to assert herself in her in-laws’ home. There are some cruel digs at Baby because of her weight; at one point Sharad says how his mother wanted him to marry someone from the Brahmin community (indicating Babita belongs to an oppressed caste).

Pushkar is excellent in one scene, as he cries himself to sleep for being a ‘decent, righteous’ man, while being completely tone-deaf to Baby’s feelings. Rajwar, who was astounding in the other film with a female cop appointed on compassionate grounds, Sandhya Suri’s Santosh (2024), has less to do here – but I loved a moment where she uses a shrug from Baby, and turns it into a threat.

No one expects much from Babita Singh. In fact, anyone she meets the first question they ask her is “aap wahi hai na, jinko anukampa niyukti mili thi?” (Aren’t you the one who was appointed on compassionate grounds?). One character even teases her with “Anukampa ji” – devaluing her. However, Baby is dogged through the entire investigation, finding the truth about Bansi’s death, as a result also finding her own voice.

Initially, I was underwhelmed by the climax reveal, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me. Sometimes, there isn’t just one killer to find. Sometimes there isn’t one blow that kills a person. Many people, many tiny blows dealt over years eventually result in a death. Anything can become a blow, even an unanswered text message from a school friend. Also, all murder investigations aren’t meant to end with the unmasking of a killer. Sometimes, the killer is hidden in plain sight: a selfish, corrosive society that preys on the niceties of the noble folk.

I would have liked the film to be 20 minutes longer, instead of being the perfunctory procedural it is, going from one plot point to the next. For a film as rigorous as this, there are some avoidable gaps in the telling, almost as if the makers were anxious of viewers tuning out. Baby deserved some breathing room—just like the film.

Babita Singh Reporting is streaming on Amazon Prime Video

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