Koimoi's review of the JioHotstar courtroom drama says the six-episode show leans on the same godman-abuse template as Aashram and Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai without finding a fresh angle.
Hunkkaar: The Roar is streaming now on JioHotstar, and if the setup sounds familiar, that's because Hindi television has been here before. Directed by Karan Kapadia and Nitya Mehra, the six-episode series puts a spiritual leader accused of sexually assaulting a minor at the centre of a small-town reckoning, and asks whether faith can be weaponised against a criminal case. A review from Koimoi says the show simply doesn't bring anything new to a genre already worked over by Aashram, Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai and Maharaj.
The plot opens fast. Seventeen-year-old Meenu Rawat, played by Aneet Padda, walks into a police station in a fictional Madhya Pradesh town to file an FIR against Baap Ji, a godman played by Raghubir Yadav who controls the town's faith and its politics. Fatima Sana Shaikh's investigating officer, Jasleen Singh Soni, is handed the case, and what follows is less a procedural than a fight between institutional machinery, media narrative and a community unwilling to see its guru as anything but untouchable.
According to Koimoi's review, the strongest scene in the entire season is Meenu's courtroom testimony, where writing, direction and performance line up for once. Padda reportedly delivers the line "13 baar bata chuki hun, lekin koi sun hi nahi raha" and later "Main kyun bataaun ki mujhe kahan kahan chhua, kitni der tak chhua," moments the review flags as the writing at its sharpest. But the same review says that intensity doesn't hold, partly because of a background score it argues undercuts the vulnerability the scene is reaching for.
The review is more generous to the cast than to the script. Fatima Sana Shaikh's Jasleen is described as someone working through institutional gaps with controlled frustration rather than playing a crusading hero, which the review credits with giving the investigation track more credibility than the writing earns on its own. Raghubir Yadav's Baap Ji gets singled out too, an unsettling, magnetic presence that never tips into a cartoon villain. Ram Kapoor, in what the review calls a brief role, reportedly owns every scene he's in, right up to his final appearance. Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub's lawyer and Arjun Mathur's journalist track fare worse, with the review calling both underused.
What Koimoi's review keeps returning to is structure. A minor accuses a godman, the town closes ranks, faith gets used against evidence, and the investigation gets slowed down by influence. That arc has already played out on Indian screens, the review argues, often at greater length and with sharper detail, across Aashram's multiple seasons, Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai and YRF's Maharaj. Six episodes should move with urgency given the subject, per the review, but Hunkkaar reportedly stretches thin in places and leans on backstories that add little.
The review's bottom line: Hunkkaar wants to ask why survivors are forced to justify themselves while powerful men are shielded by devotion, and that instinct is right even if the execution isn't original. Whether JioHotstar and the makers respond to that critique, or whether the show finds an audience regardless, plays out over the coming weeks as more reviews and viewer reactions land.
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