Beware! Assassins back on our streets

Dipak Krishnamani, 26, looks like an ordinary guy, but he has an extraordinary secret. A brand manager by profession, Krishnamani has a supari to kill an unknown victim, and he has to do it within a month or risk his own survival.

Dipak Krishnamani, 26, looks like an ordinary guy, but he has an extraordinary secret. A brand manager by profession, Krishnamani has a supari to kill an unknown victim, and he has to do it within a month or risk his own survival.

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Krishnamani is one of the participants in ‘Supari’, a local adaptation of an urban street-fighting game in which participants are assigned victims, and they must ‘kill’ their targets before they are killed themselves.

Played on the streets of Mumbai, participants have to locate or track down their victims and ‘assassinate’ them with a water pistol or water balloon. The game also includes ‘safe zones’ where participants can seek refuge if they fear an oncoming attack. Every time a victim is ‘killed’, the killer inherits a new victim. The last person standing is declared the winner.

Ajesh Shah, 29, one of the organisers, said, “The game is parallel to the participants’ everyday lives. Below the surface, people feel like they are living a double life as secret agents.”

“It’s a way of getting an adrenaline rush and a sense accomplishment without doing anything dangerous or illegal,” said Chandni Mehta, a practising psychologist.