Is Rajiv Camp a real place in Noida?

Directed by Aditya Nimbalkar, ‘Sector 36’ tells the story of a serial murder case in the remote areas of Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. After a number of missing children are reported to the local police station, Inspector Ram Charan Pandey must embark on an investigation that uncovers dark secrets that lie beneath the city’s foundations. However, the victims of the kidnapping and murder cases hail from a slum in Noida known as Rajiv Camp. The impoverished area becomes a backdrop of horror as many children and young women end up dying at the hands of Prem Singh, the elusive serial killer of the story! SPOILERS AHEAD.

Rajiv Camp is a fictional slum on the outskirts of Noida

Rajiv Camp in ‘Sector 36′ is a fictional community based on Nithari village in Noida. In the film, it is depicted as the hunting ground of serial killer Prem Singh, an aide of Balbir Singh Bassi, in House B5, which is located just outside Rajiv Camp. The area is mostly inhabited by slum dwellers and a less affluent population. When children from Rajiv Camp start going missing, local authorities like SI Ram Charan Pandey pay no heed to the complaints of the victims’ parents. The police are under the impression that children from Rajiv Camp go missing all the time due to runaway tendencies. Hence, they classify the disappearance reports as cases of self-harm rather than something to worry about. However, this turns out to be wrong as this is the main place where Prem Singh abducts children and murders them.

Although Rajiv Camp is largely fictional, the real-life inspiration for the film – the Nithari murders of 2006 – sheds some light on the origins of the slum. According to the true events, one of the alleged perpetrators of the murders, Surinder Koli, allegedly targeted children from the slums of Nithari village. These areas were located right around the residence where Koli worked for a businessman named Moninder Singh Pandher. Therefore, the Rajiv Camp depicted in the film can be considered a representation of the Nithari slums from the real-life case that inspired the Vikrant Massey-starring film. Parents of several children reported that their children went missing from Nithari village for a long time before the police took notice, which is similar to how it plays out in the film.

Ultimately, the intriguing aspect of the Rajiv camp setting is its proximity to House B5, where Prem Singh works. This proximity allows the domestic worker to enter the slums under cover of night and abduct several children. Body parts of some of the dead victims are even dumped in the sewers outside the house, and are eventually discovered by the authorities. However, the location also allows the film to explore themes of social injustice and class disparity, as it highlights the abject conditions in which the children of Rajiv camp grow up. Meanwhile, just across the wall of Rajiv camp, people live in luxury and depravity in House B5. Despite its real-life connections and distant links to the events of the Nithari massacres, the neighbourhood is a fictional construct that does not exist in reality.

Read more: Is Sector 36 a true story? Is Prem Singh based on a real serial killer?