Amazon Prime's upcoming offering, Paatal Lok, has caught the audience's attention as much for its gritty treatment as for its source material. The Anushka Sharma-backed show is based on former Tehelka editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal's book, The Story of my Assassins, which in turn is a "fictionalised tale" of the 2001 incident where five suspects were arrested for allegedly plotting his assassination. While the Jaideep Ahlawat and Neeraj Kabi show follow a similar narrative, it is told from the perspective of a cop, essayed by the former.

Sources suggest that the crime thriller was in the works over the past five years, and had faced a hurdle in 2018. According to sources, Amazon US had decided to pull the plug on it when the #MeToo movement gathered steam in India, considering Tejpal was accused of rape by a colleague in 2013 and has been on bail since July 2014.