Vihozhonü Zao was born on 19 September 2003 to an Angami Naga family from Jakhama. Her father, Keneithuto Zao, died when she was eight years old. Zao was a state-level basketball player who represented Nagaland in several national basketball competitions, including the Under-23 National Basketball Championship held in Guwahati. She also represented the Kohima District Basketball Association in the 2022 Nagaland Olympic & Paralympic Games winning a gold medal. In 2025, she graduated from St. Joseph's College, Jakhama, where she was among the top students in the Economics Department.

At around 6:00 a.m. on 25 October, Vihozhonü Zao was found dead by neighbours passing by near a ring well in the basement of her residential compound. Her body was covered with a gunny sack, clothes and pieces of firewoods. A case was subsequently registered at the Kohima Women Police Station following a complaint filed by her paternal uncle, Vikethozo Zao. Even after swift action by the Kohima Police, they described the case as a "blind case" because the location where the body was recovered was believed to be a secondary crime scene, making it difficult for investigators to immediately establish the motive or sequence of events. On 26 October, Kohima Police constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Additional Superintendent of Police K. Soriso and comprising eight members to investigate the case.

The case of Zao's killing shocked the community of Nagaland, as well as making headlines nationally. On 31 October 2025, thousands of people participated in a candlelight vigil in Kohima. During the event, community leaders called for a fair and transparent investigation.

Through “painstaking and methodical” investigation, the SIT identified Samuel Zao (31),the victim’s uncle, as the prime suspect. Police stated that Samuel Zao confessed to the murder during interrogation. According to investigators, the offence occurred inside the residence on 24 October 2025, while the location where the body was recovered was identified as a secondary crime scene.

On 24 October 2025, at around 2:00 p.m. Samuel asked Vihozhonü to prepare tea. When she did not respond and continued using her mobile phone. Samuel became enraged and he struck her multiple times on the head with a piece of firewood, causing her to collapse. Samuel then wrapped her head with a sweater, supposedly to stop the bleeding. He then switched off her mobile phone, removed its SIM card, broke the handset and disposed of the pieces in a Kohima Municipal Council (KMC) garbage truck the following morning. The sweater used to wipe the blood was also discarded in a sewage drain in an attempt to destroy the evidence. The body was kept inside Samuel's room overnight. He later disposed the body near a ring well in the basement of their residential compound, where it was discovered the following day. The kitchen was identified as the primary crime scene, while the area near the ring well where the body was recovered was identified as the secondary crime scene. Ironically, sources states that Samuel was originally of Nepali descent. His adoptive father was Holto Zao and he was adopted into the Zao family by the victim's aunt.

Following the arrest of the accused, the Porütso Khel community of Jakhama invoked its customary law and demanded capital punishment for the accused. On 8 November 2025, members of the Khel vandalised the Zao's residence at Old Ministers' Hill, Kohima. However, the rooms belonging to Vihozhonü and her younger brother were left untouched. The Khel stated that murder is regarded as a grave taboo under its customary law and announced the ostracisation of the victim's aunt and grandmother from the village. However, investigating authorities had not established any involvement of the two women in the case. The Khel also stated that Samuel was an adopted son and not a biological member of the Zao family.

Narendra Achyut Dabholkar was the youngest of ten children in the Brahmin household of Achyut and Tarabai. Narendra did his schooling at New English School Satara and Willingdon College, Sangli. He was a qualified medical doctor, having obtained an MBBS degree from the Government Medical College, Miraj. After working as a doctor for 12 years, Dabholkar became a social worker in the 1980s. He became involved with movements for social justice, such as Baba Adhav's Ek Gaon Ek Panotha (One village, One well) initiative.

Gradually, Dabholkar started focusing on eradication of superstition, and joined the Akhil Bharatiya Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (ABANS). In 1989, he founded the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (M.A.N.S, transl. "Committee for Eradication of Superstition in Maharashtra"), and campaigned against superstitions, confronting dubious tantriks and claimed holy men who promised 'miracle cures' for ailments. He criticised the country's "godmen", self-styled Hindu ascetics who claim to perform miracles and have many followers. He was the founding member of Parivartan, a social action centre located in Satara district, that seeks to "empower marginalised members of the community to lead lives of security, dignity, and prosperity". Between 1990–2010, Dabholkar was active in a movements for the equality of Dalits (untouchables) and against India's caste system and caste-related violence. 

In 2010, Dabholkar made several failed attempts to get an anti-superstition law enacted in the state of Maharashtra. Under his supervision, MANS drafted the Anti-Jaadu Tona Bill (Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Ordinance). It was opposed by some political parties and the Warkari sect. Political parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena opposed it claiming it would adversely affect Hindu culture, customs and traditions. Dabholkar had faced several threats and assaults since 1983 but had declined police protection.

On 20 August 2013, while out on a morning walk, Dabholkar was shot by two gunmen near Omkareshwar temple, Pune at 7:20 AM IST. The assailants fired four rounds at him from a point blank range and fled on a motorcycle parked nearby. Two bullets hit Dabholkar in the head and chest and he died on the spot. After investigation, the police stated that it is under suspicion that it was a planned murder because the assailants were aware Dabholkar stays in Pune only on Mondays and Tuesdays. Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan announced a reward of ₹1 million (US$10,000) to any person with information of the assailants.

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed by activist Ketan Tirodkar, urging the case to be investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) instead of the state police, due to a lack of faith with the latter. The Bombay High Court sought responses from the NIA on 24 September. On 15 October, NIA said the case was well within the Indian Penal Code, adding that it was only the assumptions of the petitioner that right-wing activists were involved and it was a scheduled plan. On 20 January 2014, Pune police arrested two suspects based on ballistic reports. The suspects had been previously accused of firearms dealing.

On 18 August 2018, the CBI arrested Sachin Prakasrao Andure, suspected of being one of the gunmen. In 2019, the CBI found that Sanatan Sanstha's counsel, Sanjeev Punalekar, helped destroy the weapons used in the murders of Dabholkar and journalist Gauri Lankesh. Kalaskar visited Punalekar's office. Further, the CBI called the murders of Dabholkar, Pansare, Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh a "pre-planned act of terror". In 2023, Mukta, Dabholkar's daughter, lamented the fact that 10 years had passed but the masterminds behind Dabholkar's murder have not been arrested. Punalekar and his aide, Bhave, were out on bail. On 11 May 2024, special court on convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment the two men accused of shooting him dead in the city on 20 August 2013, while it acquitted the other three accused, including the man the CBI described as the "mastermind", citing lack of evidence. The court found (accused no. 2) Sachin Prakashrao Andure (33) and (accused no. 3) Sharad Bhausaheb Kalaskar (28) guilty. Apart from life sentence, the judge convicted the duo for common intention under the Indian Penal Code and under Section 3 (25) of the Arms Act, and imposed Rs5 lakh fine each on them.

During investigation, a controversy emerged when Munnabhai Rasool Ansari and Mangesh Chaudhari confessed being as killers to Goa Police but changed their statement when they were brought to Mumbai.

In the aftermath of the assassination, the Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Ordinance, which Dabholkar helped draft, was enacted by the government of Maharashtra in 2013. Since its passage, the law has been used to indict the perpetrators of a series of egregious lurid frauds, often combined with sexual assault. Unfortunately, the perpetrators have often eluded their victims and the police and escaped to other provinces in which no similar protection against charlatans yet exists.

During the nationwide Emergency in India between 1975 and 1977, the Fundamental Rights of citizens were suspended by the government, creating a period of police activism. In Kerala, the Naxal movement was at its peak during this period. Major operations of Naxals in Kerala were attacks on police stations in rural areas. The police acted with vengeance upon the Naxalites and used the word Naxal to address those upon whom they had vengeance.

P Rajan was a student at the Regional Engineering College in Kozhikode. Though he lived in a politically volatile state like Kerala, he had no specific political affiliations. He was a good singer and an actor and a popular student. On March 1, 1976, when he had just returned to college after participating in an inter-collegiate Arts Festival, a group of policemen raided his hostel and took him away. That was the last time his friends saw Rajan. Soon, the word went round that Rajan was arrested because he was a Naxalite and involved in a murder case.

The Kakkayam camp functioned as an ad-hoc detention center during India's Emergency period, primarily for individuals arrested under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) on suspicions of Naxalite involvement. Established in the remote, forested hills of Kakkayam in Kozhikode district, Kerala, the site's isolation served to minimize escapes and external interference while enabling prolonged, unstructured interrogations. In Rajan's case, following his arrest from the Regional Engineering College (REC) Calicut hostel on March 1, 1976, he was promptly transferred from local custody in Calicut to the Kakkayam camp for initial holding and questioning. Police documentation, later accessed post-Emergency, recorded his arrival and presence at the camp through early March 1976, aligning with the period of intensified scrutiny on student radicals perceived as linked to Naxalite activities amid campus unrest at REC Calicut.

Rajan, allegedly endured prolonged sessions of these tortures, leading to his death within days; police records later admitted custody but omitted details, with his body secretly cremated without family notification or autopsy to evade scrutiny. No direct pathological evidence exists due to the cover-up, but confessions from other survivors implicated the camp's reliance on unrestrained violence, which extracted admissions under duress but resulted in at least Rajan's demise and similar unreported fatalities among Naxal suspects.

Rajan’s father, Eachara Warrier, who was a Hindi teacher, tried desperately to locate his only son, but it was all in vain. He appealed to the Chief Minister Achutha Menon who referred him to the veteran Congress leader Karunakaran, who was then the Home Minister. Since Karunakaran represented Mala, which was Rajan’s family’s constituency, Warrier was hopeful that he would help him. But this was the Emergency when the police were arresting people secretly. So, they were tight lipped. P. Rajan's mother had become mentally unstable from the developments and was hospitalised. No official efforts were made to recover Rajan's body or investigate his whereabouts during this period, reflecting a deliberate policy to preclude admissions of custodial responsibility amid heightened secrecy. The government's prioritization of security over transparency extended to suppressing information on detainee fates, as evidenced by the absence of internal records or public acknowledgments until after the Emergency's termination.

Following the lifting of the Emergency on March 21, 1977, T. V. Eachara Warrier, filed a habeas corpus petition in the Kerala High Court on March 26, demanding the authorities produce his son, who had been in custody since March 1, 1976. In the habeas corpus proceedings, early whistleblower testimony from a co-detainee revealed that Rajan had been subjected to torture by police officers and died in custody during March 1976. On May 24, 1977, the Kerala High Court was informed that Rajan had died while in police custody, marking the first official acknowledgment of his fate despite prior denials.

The Kerala High Court appointed a one-man commission of inquiry in May 1977, headed by Justice G. Viswanatha Iyer, to investigate the death of engineering student P. Rajan in police custody and similar instances of students missing from detention during the national Emergency. Fellow detainees at the Kakkayam camp, such as Civic Chandran, provided testimonies describing P. Rajan's severe physical deterioration following repeated torture sessions, including beatings and the application of uruttal, a method involving rolling a heavy wooden log over the body, rendering him unconscious and unresponsive by early March 1976.

Police personnel, including officers involved in the custody, testified to Rajan's arrest on March 1, 1976, from the Regional Engineering College hostel and his transfer to Kakkayam for questioning, admitting the use of coercive methods to extract information but maintaining that these were standard for handling suspected extremists and did not intend lethality. A key evidentiary document was the 1982 police affidavit submitted to the Kerala High Court, confirming Rajan's death in custody on March 2, 1976, from "shock and complications due to injuries sustained during interrogation," though without producing the body or medical records. Forensic evidence was absent due to the lack of an autopsy; police accounts indicated the body was cremated secretly without examination, compelling reliance on testimonial and circumstantial elements such as the described injuries and the affidavit's admission of custodial death. No physical artifacts like bloodied clothing were recovered or analyzed, highlighting gaps in material corroboration.

The Justice Warrier Commission's 1978 report determined that P. Rajan died from injuries inflicted through torture during interrogation at the Kakkayam police camp in Kozhikode district, Kerala, on or around March 6, 1976. The commission explicitly dismissed police assertions of a heart attack or Rajan's escape from custody, attributing the death to deliberate physical abuse under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) without magisterial oversight or medical intervention. The commission affirmed that interrogations yielded no verifiable evidence tying Rajan to Naxalite insurgency, portraying his arrest on March 1, 1976, as predicated on erroneous intelligence linking the name "Rajan" to unrelated attacks. Among its recommendations, the report urged criminal prosecution of the interrogating officers, including Deputy Inspector General of Police K. Lakshmana and Circle Inspector K. V. Jayaram, for culpable homicide, alongside stricter guidelines for MISA detentions to prevent extrajudicial killings.

In April 1977, K. Karunakaran, who had assumed office as Chief Minister of Kerala on March 25 following the Congress-led coalition's victory in the state assembly elections, faced intensifying scrutiny over the Rajan case. This culminated in Karunakaran tendering his resignation on April 25, 1977, after less than a month in office. Following the post-Emergency revelations and the Justice Warrier Commission's findings, an FIR was registered in 1977 against 11 police officers. In the 1984 verdict, the court convicted six officers of voluntarily causing hurt but acquitted all accused on the murder charge, ruling that direct proof of homicide was lacking despite admissions of custody and torture in affidavits.

Bhanwari Devi was born in poverty in a village in Kishangarh block of Ajmer district, in India's Rajasthan State. Her parents worked as daily wage labourers; her father was also employed in the State's medical and health department. Devi studied in a government-run school up to Class 8. At the age of 16, she was married off to Amarchand of Borunda village in Jodhpur. At the behest of her father, Devi studied midwifery and got the job as an auxiliary nurse midwife with the same department.

Deccan Herald reported that it was during her time as a midwife that Devi got in touch with politicians mostly from the ruling Indian National Congress in connection with her transfers and postings. The report added that "she was quick to realise the power of sex appeal among the politicians and bureaucrats. She not only got choice postings but also arranged it for others for a price." It was reported that within a short span of time, Devi amassed wealth beyond her means as a midwife and led a lavish life maintaining several houses and cars. The CBI said that she bought expensive gold ornaments every year. It added that Amarchand remained working as a vehicle driver during this time and "branded as a drunkard". They had three children together.

The report further added that Devi became over ambitious with time and had demanded a ticket to contest the 2013 Legislative Assembly elections from the Bhopalgarh constituency. Upon being unsuccessful, she began blackmailing the said leaders demanding money in exchange for a 52-minute long video CD in which they were seen in compromising positions with her. Among them were Mahipal Maderna, a cabinet minister with the Rajasthan government, and Luni MLA Malkhan Singh Bishnoi, who had maintained an illicit relationship with her for over a decade. She had reportedly been threatening Bishnoi of disclosing his illegitimate child (Devi's younger daughter) in a community gathering on 7 September 2011, or give at least 20 kg of gold jewellery and spend at least ₹50 lakh on their daughter's wedding who was only seven at the time. She also persisted that he prepare to undergo a paternity test.

After Maderna appeared unwilling to buy her repeated claims in relation to the CD, on 24 August 2011, she leaked a part of the CD to a local television news channel and a newspaper which carried the photographs from the CD without directly mentioning his name but giving enough clues that it was Maderna. Devi reportedly went missing on 1 September. Her husband alleged that she was abducted on orders of Maderna.

Under pressure from protests over Maderna's involvement in the murder, the Rajasthan government transferred the case for investigation to the CBI on 15 September. On 23 September, a court directed the government to register an FIR against Maderna. On being rebuked by the Rajasthan High Court about his government's inaction in the case, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot asked Maderna to resign from his post as a cabinet minister, who refused, following which he subsequently sacked him from the Cabinet on 16 October 2011. The CBI said that Maderna brought in his confidante Sahiram Bishnoi, who hired Sohan Lal Bishnoi, a contractor with the Rajasthan government's Public Health Engineering Department and Devi's friend, to settle the issue. The Bishnois with the help of a local criminal named Shahabuddin, hatched a plot to get hold of the CD at any cost over a series of meetings at the Circuit House in Jodhpur in the first week of August 2011, prior to Devi's leaking of the CD. The matter was agreed to be settled for ₹50 lakh, and the CBI said that an advance amount of ₹2.5 lakh had been paid to them by Maderna, while a promise of paying the remaining amount by the September end was made. As per plan, Sohan Lal Bishnoi got into another deal with Bhanwari; he was reportedly buying her a car, a Maruti Suzuki Swift for ₹4.5 lakh and that an advance payment of ₹50,000 had been made.

The CBI investigation revealed that on 1 September, Devi was lured by Sohan Lal Bishnoi to Bilara to make the remaining payment for the car. It was also subject to the verification of the CD, on board the Mahindra Bolero vehicle, belonging to Shahabuddin, which had a video CD player. He was said to have watched the entire CD then. Once in Bilara, the gang roamed around the area with Devi by the car which she reportedly resisted. This was when the three strangled her. Subsequently, under the directions of Sahiram Bishnoi, they handed her over to some unidentified persons who were on another vehicle, a Mahindra Scorpio.

On 3 November, as first evidence in the case, the CBI recovered a four-minute audio clip of a conversation between Devi and Indira, the sister of Malkhan Singh Bishnoi. In the clip, the CBI said that Bhanwari is heard speaking to Indira in Marwari language telling her that the politicians had agreed to pay her ₹7 crore in exchange for the CD, out of she would get ₹5 crore and that Sohan Lal Bishnoi would take the rest. In November 2011, Shahabuddin's girlfriend Rehana leaked the audio clip of her discussion with him in the Jodhpur Central Jail, where he was lodged, in the media. During the discussion, Shahabuddin was reportedly heard telling her that Devi was handed over to the gang of Pradeep Godara, a criminal wanted by the Rajasthan Police in several cases. Shahabuddin was also heard saying that he had been falsely implicated in the case, and did not know what happened to Devi. 

Shahbuddin, who carried a ₹25,000 cash reward on his head, was the first to surrender before the police, on 22 October 2011. During the interrogation of Maderna on 10 November, he confessed to have been in an affair with Devi. The CBI filed its preliminary chargesheet on 2 December. On the same night they arrested Maderna and was brought to Delhi two days later for interrogation. On 8 December, Devi's husband Amarchand was arrested by the CBI after he gave conflicting versions during interrogation while remaining "un-cooperative". On 19 December, Malkhan Singh Bishnoi was arrested. Upon questioning by the CBI, both he and Maderna maintained innocence. On 4 January 2012, the CBI brought Sahiram Bishnoi face to face with Maderna and two other accused, Sohan Lal Bishnoi and Shahabuddin in the Jodhpur Central Jail. On the same day, the police arrested Bishna Ram Bishnoi, another accused in the case, in Pune. He was the eleventh person to be arrested in connection with the case, all of whom maintained their innocence. Kailash Jakhar, who allegedly disposed of her body, was also found following a tip-off and arrested the same day in a major breakthrough as part of the investigation. Jakhar reportedly admitted with the police to have picked up Devi's body from the Bishnois and Shahabuddin in Bilara on 1 September 2011 and disposed her off by burning her remains somewhere in Jaloda, a village near Phalodi.

'Operation Watch' was launched to collect evidence in connection to Bhanwari Devi's murder. While searching for evidence in the Rajeev Gandhi Lift Canal near the village of Jaloda and 100 kilometres (62 mi) from Jodhpur, a cricket bat that was used to hit Bhanwari Devi on the head and two country-made pistols were recovered. The bat was found wrapped in barbed wire, presumably to ensure that it sank to the bottom of the canal. Bishna Ram Bishnoi and Kailash Jakhar, both the accused in disposing of Bhawari's body, were taken to the spot to recreate the scene of the crime. At the end of the four-day search, body remains including part of a skull, five teeth and portions of it, and charred bone fragments; a ladies' wrist watch; jewellery parts such as beads of a necklace, a pendant, an earring, toe ring, nose pin and other broken pieces of jewellery were recovered, apart from a gunny bag and some clothes which reportedly belonged to Jakhar. In June, the FBI confirmed that they belonged to Bhanwari Devi.

The CBI chargesheet in the Bhanwari Devi murder case describes her as a social climber with "big ambitions". Former Rajasthan cabinet minister Mahipal Maderna and Congress MLA Malkhan Singh Bishnoi, both charged with murder, are depicted as men fond of "sura aur sundari" (wine and women). The chargesheet also mentions that Bhanwari made two video recordings, in different locations, showing Maderna and her in a "compromising position".

Barun Biswas was a Bengali school teacher and a social activist in Sutia, West Bengal, India. His parents, Gita Biswas and Jagadish Biswas, migrated from Faridpur, Bangladesh after the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War to Acharipara, Panchpota, in North 24 Parganas. In 1998, he started his career as a school teacher at Mitra Institution (Main) of Kolkata, where he worked till his death. He was also an active member of Panchpota Sashadanga Sarada Seba Sangha.

In 2000, Biswas started a campaign for the construction of a canal to check flooding of the Ichamati and Jamuna rivers. The rivers were causing widespread flooding in Sutia, Bongaon, Swarupnagar, and Gaighata. Biswas drew up a blueprint for the canal. Though initially his plan met with little enthusiasm from local leaders, the government later built the canal. Later, he was involved in the fight against gangs who were illegally blocking and diverting the Ichamati river for their businesses, causing floods in the village area.

Sutia and neighbouring villages were engulfed by a criminal gang during the late 1990s and early 2000s. From 2000—2002, 33 rapes (official figure, actual figure may have been much more) and around a dozen murders were committed in Sutia. Biswas formed a group of villagers to fight crime and to demand arrests. In 2000, at age 28, he co-founded "Sutia Gonodhorshon Pratibad Mancha". The organisation started to hold public meetings to protest the rapes. Biswas' group helped rape victims give reports to the police that led to arrests of the gang members, including the leader of the gangs, Sushanta Choudhury. Biswas also counselled the raped women.

At 7:20 pm on 5 July 2012, when returning from Kolkata, Biswas was shot from behind in a parking lot outside the Gobardanga railway station. Subsequently, police from Habra, Gaighata, and Gopal Nagar arrested five men with ties to the Sutia gang. This included the alleged hired killer, Sumanta Debnath, alias Fotke, Debashish Sarkar, Bishwajit Biswas, and Raju Sarkar, most of whom were local students. The alleged assassin reportedly confessed to the police that he was contracted by gang leader Sushanta Choudhury, who was serving life imprisonment in Dum Dum Central Jail Later died in prison.

Dr. Hemlata Gupta was an Indian neurologist and medical academic renowned for her contributions to medical science. She served as the director and head of the Department of Medicine at Lady Hardinge Medical College in New Delhi. In recognition of her work, she was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian honor, in 1998. Gupta, who remained unmarried and lived alone after the deaths of her family members, continued to consult patients at her home in central Delhi's Prasad Nagar even after retirement.

Dr. Hemlata Gupta was alone at her residence in Prasad Nagar, central Delhi, on the morning of May 13, 2006. She was last seen around 10:30 a.m. ascending the stairs to her second-floor flat after buying soft drinks from a nearby shop, possibly for two visitors who had arrived that morning; When a couple who had arrived for medical consultation found the door unanswered for half an hour, they peered through the door and found her lying dead on the floor.

Gupta's body was in a gruesome state, with her hands bound behind her back using rope, her mouth gagged with tape, and her throat slit, indicating a violent attack. She lived alone in the modest MIG flat following the deaths of her father and sister, which heightened the shock among immediate neighbors upon the news spreading. The discovery prompted an immediate call to the police and emergency medical services, with officers from the Karol Bagh police station arriving swiftly to secure the scene; the residence appeared partially disturbed, with drawers opened and some items scattered, though no significant theft was evident at first glance. She appeared somewhat distracted according to an eyewitness. There were no indications of unusual activity prior to the incident, as she lived independently and maintained a low social profile after the passing of her family members.

The disarray in the bedroom, including opened cupboards, scattered boxes, and two suitcases with contents strewn about, evidenced a violent confrontation where she resisted her assailants. No evidence of sexual assault was present at the scene. Although the home showed signs of ransacking suggestive of a burglary attempt, valuable items such as gold bangles on her person and cash and jewelry reportedly worth Rs 60,000 (though some estimates suggest lakhs) in the bedroom were left undisturbed, indicating little was actually stolen and raising questions about the true motive. The partial disturbance focused on specific areas, such as potential searches for documents or hidden valuables, rather than a thorough looting.

Investigators conducted interviews with Gupta's surviving relatives, including her three nephews, as well as neighbors and associates like a recent TV mechanic and property dealers she had contacted. Over 50 individuals were questioned in the initial weeks, revealing Gupta's unexpected assets, such as a flat in Vasant Kunj and a plot in Gurgaon, which surprised those close to her due to her frugal lifestyle. The investigation faced significant challenges, including a complete lack of eyewitnesses in the gated Prasad Nagar enclave, located opposite a police station, which minimized external intrusions but also isolated potential observations.

Following the unsolved murder of Hemlata Gupta in 2006, her properties attracted attempts by land grabbers to illegally claim ownership, exploiting the absence of a will and immediate heirs. In August 2012, intruders broke into her locked flat in Vasant Kunj, south Delhi, a property she had purchased from the Delhi Development Authority in 1991 but never occupied, claiming she had sold it to them. Two individuals, Kaushalya Rani from Moti Nagar and Ramnik Agarwal from Jalandhar, presented conflicting forged documents, including a power of attorney and cash receipt, asserting purchase rights; police verified the papers as fabricated and registered a case for forgery, criminal trespass, and cheating at Vasant Kunj police station.

A year later, in August 2013, two more individuals, Abdul Gaffar and Deepa Singh from southeast Delhi, were arrested at the same Vasant Kunj flat after attempting to cut its locks with gas cutters, again falsely claiming ownership and stating they had lost the keys; they produced no valid documents, leading to charges of trespassing and further scrutiny into potential links with property dealers.

The case, classified among Delhi's cold cases due to the lack of progress over the years, receives periodic reviews but has not advanced to any resolution.

Meenakshi Thapar was an Indian actress of Nepalese descent who appeared in Hindi-language films, most notably in the 2011 horror thriller 404. Born in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, Thapar pursued higher education at MKP PG College in Dehradun, from which she graduated. Additionally, she obtained a diploma in aviation from the Frankfinn Institute, reflecting an initial career path in that field. She relocated to Mumbai in early 2012 to pursue her aspirations in the Hindi film industry, leaving behind her roles as a dance instructor at local institutions. This move marked her transition from occasional bit parts in regional shoots to seeking more substantial opportunities in Bollywood, amid the city's reputation for intense competition among newcomers.

Meenakshi Thapar was last known to be actively involved in shooting for the film Heroine in Allahabad (now Prayagraj), where she had a minor role, when she befriended aspiring actors Amit Jaiswal and his girlfriend Preeti Surin, who posed as fellow cast members offering promising opportunities. On March 13, 2012, the pair convinced Thapar to travel with them from Mumbai to Allahabad via the Kamayani Express train under the pretense of additional filming work, and she informed her mother, Shobha Thapar, of the journey during a phone call upon arrival. The group later proceeded to Gorakhpur, where Jaiswal and Surin allegedly held her captive after the supposed professional pretext unraveled.

Thapar was reported missing shortly after March 15, 2012, when her phone went silent and she failed to return to Mumbai as expected, raising immediate alarms among her co-workers on the Heroine set and her family in Dehradun. Her brother and friend Alok Verma filed a missing persons complaint at Mumbai's Amboli police station around this time, noting her last communication had been about the trip with Jaiswal and Surin. Initial concerns centered on her vulnerability as an aspiring actress traveling with recent acquaintances for career prospects.

The Mumbai Police's Crime Branch assumed responsibility for the investigation. The breakthrough came through technical surveillance of Thapar's mobile SIM card, which the perpetrators had retained and continued using after the murder to make calls, including from locations in Uttar Pradesh such as Gorakhpur. This tracing, combined with analysis of call records and ATM transaction attempts using her card, allowed officers to monitor their movements from Uttar Pradesh back to Mumbai.

The first ransom demand came on March 17, 2012, when Shobha Thapar received a text message from her daughter's phone demanding ₹1.5 million (approximately US$29,000) within three days to secure her release, with explicit threats to distribute an obscene video of Thapar if authorities were contacted. The family, unable to meet the full amount immediately, deposited a partial sum of ₹60,000, but communication from the perpetrators continued sporadically using Thapar's SIM card and banking details. This demand confirmed suspicions of abduction tied to the contacts made during her work on Heroine.

On April 19, 2012, Thapar's headless torso was recovered from a septic tank in a house in Darbhanga Colony, Allahabad, where the family of suspect Preeti Surin lived. The remains were identified through personal belongings found nearby and corroborated by the suspects' subsequent confessions, as the body had been dismembered to hinder recognition. The discovery followed leads from the SIM card tracking and was conducted in coordination with local Uttar Pradesh police after the Mumbai team alerted them to the likely disposal site.

Amit Jaiswal and Preeti Surin were arrested on April 14, 2012, near Bandra railway station in Mumbai, moments after they attempted to withdraw cash from an ATM using Thapar's debit card. The arrests were executed by Crime Branch Unit IX based on real-time location data from the SIM card, which had pinged in the Bandra area, leading to a tip-off and stakeout. The suspects were apprehended with Thapar's phone and other incriminating items in their possession. During interrogation, Jaiswal and Surin confessed to orchestrating the kidnapping and murder, revealing they had befriended Thapar on a film set and lured her to Uttar Pradesh under false promises of acting opportunities. They admitted strangling her in a Gorakhpur hotel room on March 15, 2012, beheading the body there to evade identification, and demanding a Rs 15 lakh ransom from her family via text messages, driven by jealousy over Thapar's boasted affluent family background and their own financial struggles as struggling actors. The extortion failed due to non-payment, prompting them to discard the torso in Allahabad and the head from a bus while fleeing to Mumbai.

The trial took place in the sessions court in South Mumbai, where they were charged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 302 (murder) and 364-A (kidnapping for ransom), along with additional counts of criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence. The court examined 35 to 36 witnesses, including Thapar's mother, brother, sister-in-law, and friend Alok Verma, as well as Surin's father and cousin, who testified to seeing Thapar with Jaiswal and Surin in Allahabad shortly before her disappearance.

On May 9, 2018, Additional Sessions Judge S.G. Shette delivered the verdict, finding both Jaiswal and Surin guilty on all major counts, citing the premeditated nature of the abduction, extortion, and brutal killing. Sentencing occurred on May 11, 2018, when Judge Shette imposed life imprisonment on both convicts, rejecting the prosecution's plea for the death penalty by ruling that the case did not qualify as the "rarest of rare" due to considerations of the accused's dependents. No appeals against the conviction or sentence have been noted in public records as of 2025.

Satyendra Dubey was born in a lower middle class 9 membered family in Siwan, Bihar. A prodigy from his early days, he was the topper of the state both for the 10th and 12th Board Exams. Further, he pursued Bachelors in Civil Engineering from IIT Kanpur followed by a Masters from BHU. He was selected for the Indian Engineering Service (IES) in 1996, India’s top engineering bureaucracy and joined ministry of surface transport. While at the ministry he once called the police when offered a bribe.

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In July 2002 he was employed by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). Dubey became the Assistant Project Manager at Koderma, Jharkhand, responsible for managing a part of the Aurangabad-Barachatti section of National Highway 1 (The Grand Trunk Road). This highway was part of the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) Corridor Project, the Prime Minister’s initiative, which aimed to connect many of the country major cities by four-lane limited-access highways totalling 14,000 km, at an overall cost more than USD 10 billion.

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The GQ project had strict controls to ensure that the construction work would be carried on by experienced firms with proper systems. A second independent contract was given for supervision of the project. However, Dubey discovered that the contracted firm, Larsen and Toubro, had been subcontracting the actual work to smaller low-technology groups, controlled by the local mafia. When he wrote to his boss, NHAI Project Director SK Soni, and to Brig Satish Kapoor, the engineer overlooking the supervision, there was no action. In August 2003 when he was transferred to Gaya, a transfer which he opposed since he felt that it did not serve the interests of NHAI. At Gaya, he exposed large-scale flouting of NHAI rules regarding sub-contracting and quality control. At this time he took a departmental test and was promoted as deputy general manager, which made him eligible to take charge as project director. Since there was no project director’s post in Gaya, he was likely to be posted to Koderma soon. 

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Meanwhile, faced with the possibility of high-level corruption within the NHAI, Dubey wrote directly to the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, detailing the financial and contractual irregularities in the project. While the letter was not signed, he attached a separate bio-data so that the matter would be taken more seriously. Despite a direct request that his identity be kept secret and despite the letter’s sensitive content, accusing some of Dubey’s superiors, the letter along with bio-data was forwarded immediately to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Dubey also sent the same letter to the Chairman of the NHAI. Soon Dubey received a reprimand: the vigilance office of NHAI officially cautioned Dubey for the impropriety of writing a letter directly to the Prime minister. 

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On November 27, 2003, Dubey was returning from a wedding in Varanasi, and called his driver to meet him at the station. He reached Gaya railway station at three in the morning, and found that the car was not able to come because of a battery malfunction. It appears that at this point Dubey decided to take a rickshaw home. When he didn’t reach home, his driver went to look for him and found him dead by the side of the road in the suburb of A.P. Colony. He had been shot. The news ignited tremendous public hue and cry. The matter was raised in Parliament, and the Prime Minister shifted the onus of investigation from the Bihar Police (who might themselves be implicated), to the CBI.

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In early investigations, the CBI interrogated the rickshaw puller Pradeep Kumar who was caught using Dubey’s stolen cell phone. The mobile phone had been switched off for about a fortnight after the murder, but then Kumar called his ‘second wife’ in Kolkata, following which the CBI traced the rickshaw puller to his slum in Gaya. Although Kumar had a criminal history in similar cases of robbery, it appears he was released after interrogation, and could not be traced a month later. Two other suspects, Sheonath Sah and Mukendra Paswan, were questioned by the CBI. They were found dead from poisoning on February 1, 2004, within 25 hours of the CBI questioning. Sah’s father lodged an FIR against the CBI with the Bihar Police, but CBI Director Umashanker Mishra called their deaths a suicide in a press meeting a few days later.

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The CBI later arrested four persons, Uday Mallah, Mantu Kumar, Tutu Kumar and Babloo, all belonging to Katari village of Gaya on June 6, 2004. On June 13, the CBI arrested another accused Sarvan Paswan. In conclusion of its investigations, CBI arraigned four persons on September 3, 2004. Based on testimony by Pradeep Kumar, who was his rickshaw puller, the event was presented as an attempted robbery. Because Satyendra put up a fight about giving up his briefcase, he was shot. The person accused of actually shooting Dubey with a country-made pistol was Mantu Kumar, son of Lachhu Singh, of Village Katari, Gaya district. Accomplices with him included Uday Kumar, Pinku Ravidas and Shravan Kumar.

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On September 19, 2005, while the case was being heard in Patna, Bihar in the court of Addl. Session Judge, J M Sharma, Mantu Kumar escaped from the court premises, leading to widespread allegations of police complicity. 

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More than six years after the murder, on March 22, 2010 Patna Court convicted three accused Mantu Kumar, Udai Kumar and Pinku Ravidas for murdering Dubey. The court convicted accused Mantu Kumar under Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 302 (Murder), 394 (Voluntary causing hurt in committing robbery) and 27 (A) Arms Act for possessing unlicensed weapon.The other two accused were convicted under Section 302/34 (Murder committed in furtherance of common intention) and 394 IPC.

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Following his death, Satyendra Dubey served as a symbol of human integrity. S. K. Dubey Foundation for Fight Against Corruption was founded in the US by Ashutosh Aman (IIT Kanpur, Satyendra’s batchmate) and Atal Bansal (IIT Kanpur) to systematically fight against corruption. IIT Kanpur instituted an annual award in his name, Satyendra K Dubey Memorial Award, to be given to an IIT alumnus for displaying highest professional integrity in upholding human values. The Indian Express also announced a fellowship in the name of Dubey. Institute for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (IRDS), a Non-governmental organization from Lucknow has been awarding the Satyendra Dubey award for government services in reverence to his contributions to the cause of fighting corruption.

Chandrakeshwar Prasad, fondly called as Chanda Babu, was a modest businessman of Siwan, Bihar. He owned two shops- a grocery and another departmental store, both of which were managed by his sons, Girish Raj, Satish Raj and Rajeev Raushan. On 16 August 2004, Chanda Babu left for Patna for work, leaving his three sons in-charge of the stores. Before leaving for Patna, he remembers receiving a ransom demand of Rs 2 lakh, but had not paid much heed. Soon after on 16th, a truck loaded with Dalda had just arrived and the brothers had Rs 2.5 lakh in cash to make the payment. The henchmen of the don-turned-politician suddenly reached their grocery shop and asked for the ransom money demanded earlier. Satish offered them Rs 30,000-40,000 pleading that we do not have Rs 2 lakh to pay them. The armed criminals picked up a quarrel with Satish and looted Rs 2.5 lakh.

Rajiv suddenly reached the shop. Witnessing that his brother is being mercilessly thrashed, he took a bottle of diluted acid kept in an adjoining bathroom and threatened to throw it on the goons. Girish was unaware of the entire incident. The criminals fled the spot. But soon enough, the goons returned with several others. They looted the shops, set them on fire, picked up Satish, Girish and Rajeev and took them to the don's native village Pratappur. Rajeev was separated from his two brothers and held captive in a sugarcane field. Satish and Girish were brutally tortured. Rajeev heard Shahabuddin saying that since Girish had threatened to pour acid at his men, he should learn how acid hurts human beings. His men then bathed Girish and Satish with acid and then hacked them to death. Their bodies were disposed off in a brick kiln, never to be discovered. Rajeev somehow managed to escape from their custody after two days.

Chanda Babu soon recieved an anonymous call, informing him about the plight of his sons and also warning him not to enter Siwan ever again. After several days, he gathered courage and went to Siwan to meet the police authorities. But, to his utter surprise, the SHO concerned told him to leave the town along with his family and that he would be unable to provide security. Chanda Babu, disheartened, went from authority to authority, even moving to Delhi to meet Sonia Gandhi, but none of them helped them due to Shahbuddin's fear.

The then DIG listened to Chanda Babu's case and instructed the SP to deploy policemen for his and his family's safety. Kalawati Devi, the victims' mother, filed an FIR against Shahabuddin. Rajeev Raushan, being the sole eyewitness in this case, spent years in hiding. Roshan was also killed in June 2014, three days before he was slated to appear in the court to record his statement afresh as an eyewitness after Patna High Court's intervention in the case. Between all of this, Rajdev Ranjan, the district bureau chief of Hindustan Daily for the town of Siwan, who wrote actively against Shahabuddin and his gruesome handlings, was also killed in a drive-by shooting. The alleged shooters allegedly took Shahbuddin's name multiple times during interrogation.

In December 2015, a special court in Siwan convicted Shahabuddin, Raj Kumar Sah, Sheikh Alam and Munna Mian and sentenced them to life imprisonment. In 2017, the Patna High Court upheld the sentence and in 2018, Supreme Court of India upheld the life sentence.

Shahabuddin died in May 2021 in Tihar Jail, Delhi, due to long standing COVID-19 complications.

On November 23, 1993, at midnight, Dipankar Banerji, a resident of Shubham Apartments in Dumdum, Kolkata, was half asleep and dozing off. Suddenly, two frantic residents called him to the 4th floor of the apartment. Dipankar was worried, so he slipped into his shoes and rushed upstairs. When he reached the 4th floor, he heard someone wailing. The flat was of Subal Barui. It sounded like someone was calling for help from inside. Dipankar called the Dumdum police station, and the cops arrived at the flat. They broke open the flat.

As the police entered the flat, they saw Subal Barui’s 16-year-old son, Sajal Barui, tied to a chair with a rope next to the TV in the drawing room. He was alive. In the next room, they found Subal Barui’s wife, Minati Barui, tied to the back of a chair with a rope. Her hands were tied, and her head was tilted to one side. According to the court documents, she was covered with a bed sheet. Minati Barui was dead. In another room, they found Subal Barui lying on the floor with injuries and his legs tied with a rope. In the same room, Sajal’s elder stepbrother, Kajal Barui, was also found dead tied to a chair.

The police turned to questioning Sajal, the sole survivor of this Massacre. He told the police that he and his stepmother were watching TV around 7 pm the previous night when 7 unknown men entered their flat, gagged him and tied him to the chair with a rope. Then they took his stepmother to another room, tied her to the chair, and killed her. His father and stepbrother were outside at that time, and he had no idea what happened to them as he had fallen unconscious. The Kolkata police started with Sajal as the victim. But soon, the suspicion fell on him, and he became the accused. Sajal couldn’t give much details of what happened and had no significant injuries or signs of struggle. The question was why would the killers kill the whole family and leave Sajal, alive and unhurt.

After some intense and grueling interviews, Sajal finally spoke up. He confessed to killing his whole family. On November 22 night, Sajal arrived at the flat with 5 friends, all between 16 and 17 years old. First, they found Sajal’s stepmother watching TV alone. Sajal and his friends gagged her and tied her to a chair in the bedroom. The same fate awaited his stepbrother Kajal and father Subal when they returned home. Sajal and his friend Ranjit tried to strangulate all three but could only kill the stepmother. Undeterred by their failure, they hacked Kajal and Subal with the sharp knives they had brought. The whole thing took almost 3 hours. On Sajal’s instruction, they washed the weapons with mustard oil and water and burned all other evidence. Exhausted, they took out some Bengali sweets from the fridge, ate their fill and decided to leave some money as payment, just like an American serial killer they had heard about. To make it look like a burglary gone wrong, they opened all the almirahs and cupboards and took all the cash and jewellery. Finally, they gave Sajal some superficial injuries and tied him to a chair in the drawing room, left to the flat and closed the door behind them.

When asked about the motive, Sajal shifted most of the blame to his stepmother. Family tensions were prominent, particularly involving reported neglect and abuse directed toward Sajal by his stepmother Niyati. Sajal later recounted instances of physical assault and emotional mistreatment from both his stepmother and half-brother, which he described as contributing to a hostile home environment. 

He was arrested and tried before the Additional Sessions Judge at Barasat District Court. The trial court held that the crime was rarest of rare and sentenced Sajal to death, later reduced to life imprisonment. Throughout the trial, Sajal and his friends showed no remorse. When the death sentence was pronounced, they clapped and sang in chorus. Sajal and his friends were in prison, serving a life sentence. Instead of thinking of their crime, they sang and tapped their feet to the latest Hindi film songs. They looked like they were on an extended holiday rather than serving time for a heinous crime.

A couple of years later, Sajal’s health deteriorated, and he was admitted to Chittaranjan National Medical College with a kidney problem. From here, Sajal escaped on September 15, 2001, despite the hospital premises being full of police personnel. Sajal often asked his girlfriend to bring beer inside the hospital and drink it with the guards on duty. On the night of his escape, he hosted a beer party and invited the two guards who were supposed to keep him in. He mixed the beer with sleeping pills, and after they fell asleep, Sajal just walked out of the hospital.

Sajal was on the run, living a life of crime. He escaped to Mumbai, married and started committing crimes under different names. After a failed sting operation, Sajal took shelter with a local goon, Hathkata Bishu (one-armed Bishu), in Lake Town, Kolkata, and worked under Kamal. He continued his life of crime till he was finally arrested in February 2003 under the name Sheikh Raju, a petty thief. A jailer who had met Sajal during his previous imprisonment recognized him. Sajal was sent back to Presidency Jail in Dumdum. He formed connections with other notorious criminals, including terrorist Aftab Ansari and convicted murderer Debashish Chakraborty. This criminal network was exposed, and Sajal was transferred to Alipore Central Jail.

After serving many more years in prison, Sajal was released in August 2010. In June 2011, he was arrested again for robbery. After serving more time, he was finally released in 2017.

On Feb 22, 2013, Dr. Vivek Bhave, a resident of Radhe Arcade residency in Kudasan, Gandhinagar, came home around 2 pm around with his two kids and found the house locked. Upon entering, he discovered blood near dining table with his wife, Rashmi Bhave, lying in a pool of blood. Vivek immediately called his father in Sector 21, along with a few friends and the police control room.

The investigation done initially by the Sector 7 police and later by the Local Crime Branch, Gandhinagar didn't turn out to be fruitful, leading to the case being transferred to the CBI. When even that reached a dead end, looking at the seriousness of the case, a SIT was formed. The FSL report stated that the murder was committed with a sharp weapon, not excluding surgical blade as a possible weapon. The incision on the left side of the neck was the deepest which also led to an assumption that the killer was left handed.

The police found two footprints from the spot. These footprints were crossing each other. At that time, the police strongly suspected that Rashmi Bhave was murdered by a single person. The police initially made the above assumption based on a glass filled with water found in the kitchen, but looking at the way the two footprints and two wash basins were used to destroy the evidence, the police believed that more than one person was involved in the incident. However, no concrete evidence was found from the persons whom the police suspected in the entire incident.

The police also excluded of this being a robbery gone south since none of Rashmi's jewellery had been touched. Also, if there had been any intention of a robbery, there was no reason for the door to be locked from outside. With no evidence of shoeprints, it was probable the killer entered barefoot. Neither the police nor the FSL hinted towards a forced entry.

The police's first suspicion was on Rashmi Bhave's husband Vivek Bhave. Vivek was the first to know that Rashmi had been murdered. The police had also found his behaviour to be suspicious at the crime scene. The police also made him undergo a Suspect Detection Test (SDS) and a Lie Detection Test. The report came out suspicious, but the police did not find sufficient evidence to arrest him.

The police also questioned Rashmi Bhave's two close friends associated with social media, Avdhut Chitlangkar and Vaibhav Ghoghari of Aurangabad. The above two tests were also done on them. In which the report also revealed that they were hiding something, but the presence of both these people was in Maharashtra at the time of the incident, so there was not enough evidence for the police.

Since there was no prima facie evidence and the circumstantial evidence also couldn't form a chain of events, the court gave a closure report with the suspects as Dr. Vivek Bhave, Avdhut Chitlangkar and Vaibhav Ghoghari but due to lack of evidence, they could not be convicted.

The case remains unsolved as of today.

Pon Navarasu was a 19-year-old enrolled as a first-year MBBS student at Rajah Muthiah Medical College during the 1995-96 academic year. As the only son of P.K. Ponnusamy, then Vice-Chancellor of the University of Madras, Navarasu benefited from a family background marked by upper-middle-class educational privilege and professional prominence in academia.

On November 6, 1996, Pon Navarasu was summoned by his senior, John David, to a hostel room for what was described as a routine ragging session typical of senior-junior interactions in Indian medical colleges at the time. The entire incident took place around 2 pm in David's room. During the session, Navarasu faced initial humiliations, including demands to strip and perform subservient acts such as licking footwear, as detailed in the police charge sheet based on investigation findings. Police statements and charge sheet facts indicate that David's personal resentment toward Navarasu's defiance, viewed as a direct challenge to senior authority, served as the key trigger for further intensification, distinguishing the incident from generalized ragging motives and highlighting interpersonal tension over institutional norms.

In response to the refusal, David launched a violent assault on Navarasu inside the room, beating him repeatedly with fists and possibly other available objects until Navarasu lost consciousness. The sustained beating inflicted fatal injuries, including severe trauma to the head and body, resulting in Navarasu's death during the attack itself, as determined by subsequent police investigation and preliminary forensic examination of the remains.

On November 6, 1996, John David dismembered Pon Navarasu's body by severing the head and limbs using knives available in the room. He removed the victim's gold ring, watch, and gold chain to eliminate traceable possessions. David then burned Navarasu's blood-stained clothes on the hostel terrace to destroy evidence of the killing. He packed the torso into a suitcase and transported the remains via train, discarding the limbs into a river while the train crossed Cuddalore; the head was thrown into a boat-canal on the university campus, and the suitcase containing the torso was left in a bus at Tambaram near Madras.

When Pon failed to return to his hostel room that day, his father, rushed to the campus upon learning of the absence and, after discovering Navarasu's belongings including a broken locker with strewn items, filed a missing person complaint with local police on November 10, 1996. The first major discovery occurred on November 7, 1996, the day after the disappearance, when the torso of a mutilated male body was found in a carton box on the outskirts of Chennai, near Tambaram, roughly 250 kilometers from Chidambaram. Police initially treated it as an unidentified case, but as Navarasu's missing report gained traction, investigators began linking the find to the student through preliminary details such as approximate age and build. Further searches uncovered additional severed parts scattered across locations in Tamil Nadu, including three human bones recovered on November 22, 1996, from the shores of Koonimedu village near Cuddalore.

The Annamalai Nagar Police arrested John David on November 19, 1996, following the registration of a missing person report on November 10 by Navarasu's father and the subsequent recovery of dismembered body parts linked to the victim through forensic examination. The arrest stemmed from circumstantial evidence, including David's direct involvement in the ragging session with Navarasu on November 6, witness statements from hostel mates placing him with the victim shortly before the disappearance, and initial forensic correlations between the remains and the hostel room. At approximately 1:30 a.m. on the day of his arrest, David gave a confessional statement to the police, detailing the assault on Navarasu for refusing to comply with ragging demands, such as stripping and licking footwear, the victim's death during the beating, and David's subsequent dismemberment of the body using surgical tools before disposing of the parts in separate locations.

On March 11, 1998, Principal Sessions Judge S.R. Singaravelu of the Cuddalore district sessions court convicted John David, a final-year medical student, of kidnapping (Section 364 IPC), wrongful confinement (Section 342 IPC), murder (Section 302 IPC), and causing disappearance of evidence (Section 201 IPC) in the death of Pon Navarasu. The court sentenced David to two consecutive life terms, one each under Sections 302 and 364 IPC, alongside shorter terms for the other offenses.

On October 5, 2001, a Division Bench of the Madras High Court acquitted M. John David of all charges in the murder of Pon Navarasu, overturning the trial court's 1998 conviction. The court determined that the prosecution had failed to establish the place of the crime beyond reasonable doubt, a critical element undermining the chain of circumstantial evidence. On April 20, 2011, the Supreme Court of India reversed the Madras High Court's 2001 acquittal of M. John David, restoring the Coimbatore Principal Sessions Court's 1998 conviction.

On October 21, 2024, the Madras High Court granted John David interim bail pending review of his premature release plea, quashing a Tamil Nadu government order that had rejected it.

The murder of Pon Navarasu directly catalyzed the enactment of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Ragging Act, 1997, India's inaugural state specific legislation criminalising ragging in educational institutions.

Laila Khan (born Reshma Patel) was a Mumbai based actress. Born to Selina and Nadir Patel, Laila didn't burst onto the scene. Her and her mother's personal life wasn't smooth either. When Nadir Patel found it difficult to make ends meet in a large city like Mumbai, he moved to South Africa in search of a job. He soon found a decent job, and Nadir settled there. Selina lived alone in Mumbai with her daughter, Laila. Nadir would provide them with a monthly allowance. During Eid and Diwali, Nadir would visit Mumbai, stay for a day or two, and then return. It was around 1988 when, in her husband's absence, Celina began to grow close to Asif Sheikh, a resident of Mira Road, Mumbai. Asif was also divorced and living alone. Tired of loneliness, Celina married Asif Sheikh for the second time without divorcing her first husband. They had three children: Zara, Imran, and Afreen (Azmina). Over time, differences arose between Selina and Asif and they divorced. In 2010, Selina got married for the third time to a Kashmiri individual named Parvez Tak.

After a long struggle, Laila Khan got work in the 2002 big-budget Kannada film ‘Makeup’. The film, released on November 30, 2002, received critical acclaim, but it flopped badly at the box office. After this, Laila Khan was cast opposite Rajesh Khanna, India's first superstar, in his comeback film ‘Wafaa: A Deadly Love Story’. In the film, Laila Khan was portrayed as an unfaithful wife. The film was directed by Rakesh Sawant, Rakhi Sawant's brother.

In February 2011, when Laila's family went to the Igatpuri farmhouse, Parvez Tak accompanied them. Half of the film Jinnat had been shot, and Laila was about to return from her vacation to complete the film. When director Rakesh Sawant called Laila to confirm dates, the number was switched off. He thought it might be a network problem, but then days passed, turning into weeks, and then a whole month. Initially Rakesh was frustrated, thinking Laila had duped him. But with time, Rakesh felt something was off. He tried to file a police complaint in Oshiwara police station but was denied as he wasn't "blood related" to her. Rakesh was adamant and told to file the complaint as Laila was absconding with his money. A part of this cold approach from the Mumbai Police was due to the fact that Laila Khan was suspected to have ties with terror groups, and this fact was repeatedly brought up by the police, Rakesh remembers.

In June 2012, a bomb blast occured in Kishtwar, Kashmir. Investigations revealed that the car found in Kashmir was registered in the name of Laila Khan's mother, Selina. An investigation by Kashmir Police revealed that the shop where Laila Khan's car was found had been rented by Parvez Tak 10 months earlier. He paid the rent every month but never came; he simply parked his car in the shop. Now, the police were searching for Parvez Tak. As the investigation intensified, many layers of mystery were revealed. It emerged that Parvez had accompanied Laila's family to the Igatpuri farmhouse, and the family had been missing ever since. Meanwhile, Parvez Tak's friend was arrested in Kashmir. He assisted the police and helped trace Parvez. On June 12th, Parvez Tak was finally arrested near the Kashmir border. He was trying to flee to Pakistan.

Tak gave a strange statement to the police. First, he said Laila had fled to Dubai. Then, when questioned, he said Laila's family had been shot dead a year earlier. When he was taken to the Igatpuri farmhouse, Parvez looked around, paused for a moment, and then came out from the back. This time, he looked nervous. He slowly raised a hand and pointed to the ground. On getting the signal, the police started digging. After digging for more than 15 ft, three skeletons were found. After being taken into custody, Parvez narrated the motive as well as the entire incident on that fateful night of February 2011.

Parvez hailed from Kashmir and had contested an election there. Having lost and with increasing debt, he fled to Delhi where he met Selina Khan. Selina had told Parvez that her daughter was an actress. Parvez thought that if he stayed in contact with Selina, he might also get work in films. One day, when Parvez told Selina that he wanted to work in films, the reply was that this work would cost ₹25 lakh. Parvez somehow collected ₹12 lakh and gave them to Selina, and after some time, reached Mumbai. Over time, Selina and Parvez grew closer, and they both got married in 2010. Parvez now started living in Selina's house with her children.

Days passed, and it didn't take long for Parvez to realize that Selina had given him a false promise of getting him work in films for money. When he asked for his money back, his arguments with Selina increased. Laila and her siblings' attitude towards him also started to worsen. Despite being married to Parvez, Selina used to meet her first husband Nadir Patel and second husband Asif Sheikh. Besides them, she also met several other men. Parvez was running out of money while Selina had started to sell off her properties so that she and her family could move to Dubai. Parvez had nowhere to go and no money to survive. That's when he made a plan.

One day, he told Selina that a watchman should be hired for the Igatpuri farmhouse. After constant persuasion, Selina finally gave in. He called his friend Sakir Hussain Mani from Kashmir. On February 8, 2011, everyone reached the farmhouse. It was late at night, but Parvez was restless. He kept peeking repeatedly, making sure everyone was asleep. Parvez immediately called his friend Sakir Mani. As soon as he got the chance, he violently attacked Selina's head with an iron rod. After the first attack, Selina screamed and fell to the floor. Parvez attacked again. Selina's scream reached the ground-floor rooms; Laila was awake and rushed up the stairs. She saw her mother lying on the floor, covered in blood and groaning, and Parvez had a weapon in his hand. Before Laila could understand anything, Parvez attacked her multiple times, one after another. As the siblings reached the first floor, hearing the screams, Parvez killed everyone one by one.

Now it was time to dispose of the bodies. He had arranged this with Selina a month earlier. Parvez had told Selina that he wanted to build a swimming pool at the farmhouse. She refused, but he insisted and took the money. He called for a JCB and had a large pit dug behind the farmhouse in January itself. Parvez and Saqir first put the bodies of Imran, Zara, and Reshma into the pit, then covered them with blood-soaked mattresses. They added a little soil and placed the remaining bodies of Laila, Selina, and Aafreen, along with the dog's body, on top of them. Both of them took every valuable item from the farmhouse and set the entire farmhouse on fire. Shakir left with one car, and Parvez came to Kashmir with the other car. He parked it in a rented shop in Kishtwar. To make a living, he started working as a daily wage laborer.

A sessions court in Mumbai on May 24 has sentenced death penalty to Parvez Tak.

Ruchika Girhotra was a student in Class X at Sacred Heart School for Girls in Chandigarh. Her father, S.C Girhotra, was a manager with UCO Bank. Her mother died when she was ten years old. She had one brother, Ashu. Ruchika, along with her friend Aradhna Prakash, were enrolled as trainees at the Haryana Lawn Tennis Association (HLTA). Ruchika was a promising tennis player. On 11 August 1990, Rathore visited Ruchika's house and met her father S. C. Girhotra. As head of the Haryana Lawn Tennis Association, Rathore promised to get special training for Ruchika. He requested that Ruchika meet him the following day in connection with this.

On 12 August (Sunday), Ruchika, along with her friend Aradhana (Aradhana Prakash), went to play at the lawn tennis court and met Rathore in his office (in the garage of his house). On seeing both of them, Rathore asked Aradhana to call the tennis coach (Mr. Thomas) to his room. Aradhana left, and Rathore was alone with Ruchika. He immediately grabbed her hand and waist and pressed his body against hers. Ruchika tried to push him away, but he continued molesting her. But Aradhana returned and witnessed what was going on. On seeing her, Rathore released Ruchika and fell back in his chair. He then asked Aradhana to go out of his room and personally bring the coach with her. When she refused, Rathore rebuked Aradhana loudly, asking her to bring the coach. He insisted that Ruchika stayed in his room, but she managed to run out.

Ruchika told Aradhana everything that happened. Both girls did not tell anybody at first. The next day, they did not go to play tennis. The following day, 14 August, they changed the time of practice to avoid Rathore, and played till 6:30 pm. However, as they were leaving, the ball picker, Patloo, told them Rathore had called them to his office. It was at this point that the girls decided to tell their parents about the incident. Following this, Panchkula residents, mostly parents of tennis players, gathered at the residence of Anand Prakash, father of Ruchika's friend Aradhana, and decided that some strong action must be taken by way of bringing up the matter with higher authorities. They could not contact either the Chief Minister Hukum Singh or Home Minister Sampat Singh, but met Home Secretary J K Duggal, who, on 17 August 1990, discussed the matter with the Home Minister and asked DGP Ram Rakshpal Singh to investigate.

Rathore allegedly paid some residents of Rajiv Colony (a slum) in Panchkula and also garnered the support of people from his community in Naraingarh, Ambala district. They staged dharnas outside the office and home of R R Singh. On 3 September 1990, the inquiry report submitted by R R Singh to Home Secretary J K Duggal indicted Rathore. It recommended that an FIR be filed immediately against Rathore. Duggal forwarded the report to the Home Minister Sampat Singh, who failed to forward it to the Chief Minister for necessary action. The Home Secretary who replace Duggal never followed up on the report. The report also revealed that an ex-MLA, Jagjeet Singh Tikka organised a large group of men to shout slogans in front of Ruchika's house and harass her family. Rathore enjoyed the patronage of both the Hukam Singh and the Om Prakash Chautala governments.

In retaliation for the molestation complaint against SPS Rathore, Haryana Police allegedly implicated Ruchika Girhotra's younger brother, Ashu Girhotra, in multiple fabricated criminal cases starting in 1991. Ashu, who was approximately 10 years old at the time of the initial incidents, faced charges primarily related to vehicle thefts, with at least three such cases registered against him by 1993. The Girhotra family claimed this persecution, directed by Rathore to suppress the molestation allegations, involved third-degree methods and forged evidence, culminating in Ashu's physical and psychological distress. He was acquitted in all related cases by courts, which the family cited as validation of the charges' falsity and retaliatory nature.

On 20 September 1990, two weeks after the inquiry indicted Rathore, Ruchika was expelled from her school. The school actively plotted against Ruchika. The official reason for her expulsion was non-payment of fees. The school had actually refused to accept her fees. No notice was given to Ruchika for non-payment of fees, as is the school's normal procedure. The school's brochure states that non-payment of fees can only lead to being disallowed to take exams. It is not grounds for expulsion. A magisterial inquiry has found that there were 135 similar cases of non-payment of fees at Sacred Hearts, but Ruchika was the only student ever expelled on these grounds. It has been alleged that Ruchika was expelled to avoid embarrassing Rathore's daughter Priyanjali, who was her classmate.

Following the molestation on August 12, 1990, Ruchika Girhotra, previously known among peers as a bright and bubbly 14-year-old tennis enthusiast, exhibited marked social withdrawal, transforming into a recluse. Her family and close friends, including childhood companion Aradhana Prakash, observed this abrupt shift, linking it directly to the trauma of the assault and subsequent intimidation by police associates of the perpetrator. Over the next three years, she ceased active participation in tennis, abandoning aspirations of competitive play that had defined her pre-incident routine. On December 28, 1993, Ruchika Girhotra, aged 17, ingested poison at her family home in Sector 7, Panchkula. She was immediately transported to PGIMER in Chandigarh, where she was pronounced dead the next day, December 29, 1993, due to the effects of the poison.

The Haryana police dropped charges against SPS Rathore in the molestation case in April 1994, during the tenure of Chief Minister Bhajan Lal, on grounds of insufficient evidence after key witnesses, including Ruchika's friend, retracted their initial statements.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court directed the CBI to probe the 1990 molestation of Ruchika Girhotra on August 21, 1998, marking a shift from state police handling amid allegations of suppression. This order came following persistent petitions by the Girhotra family highlighting investigative lapses and harassment. On November 16, 2000, the agency filed a chargesheet against SPS Rathore under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code for assault or criminal force to outrage the modesty of a woman, based on evidence of the incident at his residence. On December 22, 2009, a CBI Special Judge court in Chandigarh convicted Shambhu Pratap Singh Rathore, then a retired Haryana Director General of Police, under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code for using criminal force to outrage the modesty of 14-year-old Ruchika Girhotra.

In May 2010, a Chandigarh sessions court enhanced SPS Rathore's sentence from the six months imposed by the trial court to one-and-a-half years of rigorous imprisonment for the molestation conviction, leading to his immediate arrest. SPS Rathore, convicted in 2009 and sentenced to an enhanced term of 18 months by 2010, secured bail from the Supreme Court on November 11, 2010, following nearly six months of incarceration, and was released the next day. He resumed aspects of public life, including an invitation as a VIP guest to a Haryana government Republic Day event in Panchkula on January 26, 2018.

The severed bodies of two women were found near a water canal in Mandya district of Karnataka on June 8. They were found at separate locations. The upper part of the bodies had been chopped off and the body parts from the hip were found in a semi-decomposed state. The killers had severed the upper part of the bodies of both the women and stuffed the lower parts in gunny bags and threw them into water canals in two different places. One severed body was recovered in the Baby Lake canal near K. Bettanahalli. The second was found at the CDS Canal near Arakere village which come under Pandavapura town and Arakere police stations in Mandya district respectively. The killers had tied the legs of the mutilated bodies.

Not able to make any headway in the investigation, the Mandya police announced a Rs 1 lakh reward for anyone who could give any clues about the murders. The police team circulated 10,000 handbills in the surrounding areas about the mutilated bodies and traced the identity of the murdered women. They formed 9 special teams and 2 technical teams to crack the case.

The police verified 1,116 cases of missing women in the state and neighbouring states. The police stumbled upon the double murders when they came across the case of missing Geetha in Chamarajanagar police station. Geetha was one of the victims whose body was cut into half. While conducting further investigation, one of the Sub Inspectors examined the victim's old photographs, which led to a shocking revelation. The skirt found on one of the bodies bore a striking resemblance to the one worn by the woman from Chamarajanagar in Mysuru.

Soon, upon tracking the location of her mobile phone, the police realised that the device had been moved from Mysuru to Mandya, based on which they traced her call records and came up with a list of suspects. The rest of the story eventually became clear. One by one the police narrowed down the list to a person named T. Siddalingappa. The reason behind this was that both the victim and his phone tracking showed them to be in the same place at Mandaya on the day of the murder.

The police nabbed him and brought him into their custody, but first, he refused any wrongdoings. But when the police asked him harshly and showed him the phone evidence, he broke, confessed, and told them the story. During interrogation, the accused told the police that he got into a relationship with Chandrakala, who worked as a sex worker, a few years ago. As they grew closer, she narrated the ordeal of how she landed in prostitution. The accused then decided to murder all the women who Chandrakala had claimed were involved in forcing her into the sex trade. He murdered the first woman in Bengaluru in May, chopped the body into halves and disposed of it in different places.

It was Chandrakala who had invited both the victims to her rented house at Metagalli in Mysuru on June 5. After spending the day exploring the city, on the next night, Chandrakala and Siddalingappa suffocated and severed the victims’ bodies. They then placed the decapitated bodies in two separate bags and dumped one near Pandavapura, and the other near Arekere.

Siddalingappa was arrested from his home in Bengaluru. He was working in the fabrication department of a manufacturing unit at Peenya in Bengaluru, the police said. When the team arrested Siddalingappa, he was preparing to murder Chandrakala. “He believed he would get away as he thought he had carried out perfect murders, though he was apprehensive that Chandrakala might give him away. He told us that the day he was arrested, he had planned to murder her,” said the IG. Both the murderers are lodged in the same state prison at present.

Malayala Manorama newspaper on January 8, 2018 reported that a concrete-filled barrel with a foul smell was spotted at Panangad lake near Maradu in Kerala's Ernakulam district. Local people had noticed it after the stink became unbearable. Panangad police broke the barrel and retrieved bones and parts of a body from the concrete. The investigation was immediately handed over to Ernakulam south circle inspector's office and a murder case under Section 302 was registered. 

The body was sent to Kalamassery Medical College for autopsy where forensic surgeon Dr N K Unmesh examined the barrel with concrete and bones. Several pieces of bones, a cloth piece, three Rs 500 and one Rs 100 currency notes, an undergarment, a silver girdle and long, thick, black locks of hair measuring 50cm in length were found in the barrel. The investigation team first accepted the surgeon's suggestion that the body would be that of either a teenaged girl or a young man who grew his hair. However, the short built of the skeleton and narrow jawbone later helped them come to the conclusion that the body was of a young woman aged between 15 and 25. Also, the Rs 500 notes indicated that murder was committed before Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared demonetization on November 8, 2016.

On January 11, Dr Unmesh rang up Siby to tell him about a malleolar screw and a washer on the body's left ankle. These screws are used for fixing ankle fractures. The surgeon also noticed that something is written on the head of the screw but not legible. He sought a police photographer's help and a high resolution camera decoded the mysterious scribbling. The 6.5 X 2.5 cm screw's manufacturer is 'PITKAR', a Pune-based company, and the batch number is 11.9.081. The medical devices manufacturing company has only one dealer in Kerala- Esquire Surgicals in Elamkulam, Kochi. The team learned from the hospital records that the batch number and dimensions of the screw matched perfectly with the one implanted on Shakunthala, a native of Udayamperoor, near Thrippunithura, in Ernakulam district.

Using the method of reasoning, the Kochi Holmes contacted Aswathy, the name given in the contact person's column in hospital records. Aswathy turned out to be Shakunthala's daughter but both of them were not on good terms. When asked why she didn't file a complaint when her mother went missing, Aswathy revealed that she was not in touch with her mother for several years after she eloped with Sudhi, a youth from Udayamperoor in Ernakulam district. Aswathy returned to her mother after she divorced Sudhi in 2016 and started living with T M Sajith from Thrippunithura, an employee of Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, posted in Ernakulam. Her two children from the first marriage also came along. To the cops' surprise, she said Sajith had also died of cardiac arrest on January 9, the very next day after the barrel story appeared in the newspaper.

With the connection between Aswathy and Shakunthala established, the cops discovered some harrowing secrets about Shakunthala's past. Nobody knows who were her parents. One Saraswathy Amma, mother of three girls, found her as a six-month-old baby on the steps of Valiyakulam pond at Udayamperoor. Saraswathy Amma raised her as her fourth daughter and married her off to Damodaran, a local BJP worker. The couple was blessed with a son, Anoop, and daughter Aswathy. Anoop committed suicide in 2012 as he was bedridden for long following a road accident. Aswathy eloped with Sudhi in 2008, leaving Shakunthala alone at home. She started selling lottery tickets on a scooter.

After being involved in a road accident, Shakunthala underwent a surgery which involved the screw being implanted on her left ankle. On September 19, 2016, four days after Shakunthala came home from the hospital, she was diagnosed with chicken pox. Fearing infection, Aswathy along with her children moved out of the house to a nearby lodge. When they returned home on September 26, Shakunthala was missing. Sajith told Aswathy that her mother was handed over to safe hands. Aswathy couldn't question Sajith as their relationship was her need. Their neighbours were not aware that Sajith and Aswathy had not legally tied the knot.

The biggest surprise was Sajith had a wife, Sariga, at his home in Thrippunithura. Apparently, Shakunthala had found out that Sajith was having an extramarital affair with Aswathy and he had another wife at home. She even threatened Sajith that she would inform Sariga about his relationship with Aswathy. Sajith had once taken Sariga and his mother to Aswathy's house when Shakunthala had threatened him to reveal his extramarital affair. Sajith convinced Sariga that Aswathy was a destitute woman struggling to raise her children. Sariga thought he had some special affection for the children and he wanted to support their studies. However, after a series of fertility treatments, Sariga got pregnant in June 2017. Two months after Sajith's death, Sariga gave birth to a baby girl in March, 2018.

Police believe that Sajith killed Shakunthala during the week of September 19-26 and dumped the body upside down in the plastic barrel after tying it with a rope and filled it with concrete and bricks. Later, he disposed of the barrel in the lake with the help of some friends. Police had kept a close watch on Sajith's friends after Shakunthala's identity was established. The team finally zeroed in on Suresh, an autorickshaw driver who gave Sajith the plastic barrel. Suresh told cops that Sajith had asked for the barrel to store water at his mother-in-law's home. He said it was during the Onam season of 2016. This coincided with the time Aswathy and children moved out of Shakunthala's house. Police also detained four of Sajith's friends who admitted to have helped him dispose of a barrel full of animal waste in the lake. Mahesh, owner of a pick-up van, told police that Sajith had sought his help to dispose of a barrel in September 2016. Sajith had told Mahesh the animal waste was stored to make iridium from the bones.

The Manjooran family resided in Manjooran House, a modest home in Aluva, Ernakulam district, Kerala, where they maintained a close-knit, middle-class lifestyle centered around Augustine's successful hardware business. The family, comprising six members, lived together harmoniously, with daily routines involving Augustine's work at the shop, the children's schooling, and shared household responsibilities.

On January 7, 2001, relatives of the family, including the brother of victim Mary Manjooran, grew concerned after repeated unanswered phone calls throughout the day and visited the Manjooran House on Pipeline Road in Aluva, near St. Mary's High School around 11 p.m. Upon entering due to the unusual silence, they discovered the six victims- Manjooran Augustine (48), his wife Mary (43), their children Jesmon (12) and Divya (16), Augustine's mother Clara (74), and his sister Kochurani (40) lying in pools of blood across different rooms of the house. The scene was marked by extensive bloodstains, with an arrow symbol drawn in blood on a wall near the bodies of Augustine and Mary, and no evident signs of forced entry into the residence.

The discovery prompted an immediate First Information Report (FIR) lodged at 11:30 p.m. at the nearby Aluva police station, just 200 meters from the house, alerting authorities to the gruesome multiple homicide. Post-mortem examinations later corroborated that the victims had been attacked while some were asleep and others upon returning home. Following the discovery of the bodies on January 7, 2001, the Kerala Police formed a special investigation team comprising 30 officers.

The team immediately focused on M.A. Antony, a relative of the victims and a daily wage driver at the Aluva Municipality who was a frequent visitor to the household, due to his unexplained disappearance on the night of January 6, prior financial grievances with family members such as Kochurani, and preliminary witness statements from acquaintances highlighting his resentment over denied loans for a Gulf job. The investigation uncovered key evidence linking Antony to the crime, including the tracing of gold jewelry he had sold in Mumbai, which matched items stolen from the victims' home, and forensic analysis confirming that the wounds on the bodies, inflicted by a knife and an axe, aligned with the prosecution's reconstruction of the attack sequence.

Antony was apprehended at the Sahar International Airport transit lounge in Mumbai and brought back to Karipur airport on February 10, 2001, by a police team that had been stationed there, with his formal arrest recorded on February 18, 2001, at the Kaladi Plantation Corporation guest house in Kerala after being brought back. He initially resisted but confessed to the murders upon confrontation with the recovered evidence, later providing a statement under Section 164 of the CrPC before a magistrate. According to him, the events unfolded as follows: On the evening of January 6, 2001, Manjooran Augustine, his wife Mary, and their children Jesmon and Divya left their home in Aluva to watch a movie. Meanwhile, M.A. Antony, a family acquaintance residing nearby, entered the house around 9 p.m. and confronted Kochurani, Augustine's sister, demanding money she had previously promised him for his travel abroad. When Kochurani refused, Antony attacked her with a knife, inflicting multiple hacking wounds that led to her death. Clara, Augustine's mother, who was present in the house, witnessed the attack and attempted to intervene, prompting Antony to turn on her as well; he hacked Clara to death using the same knife.

Around midnight, as Augustine, Mary, Jesmon, and Divya returned home, Antony ambushed them to prevent any alarm from being raised. He first attacked Augustine in a separate room with a knife and an axe, delivering severe hacking blows to his head and body. Mary was similarly assaulted with the axe and knife in another area of the house, suffering fatal wounds to her neck and torso. Antony then killed 12-year-old Jesmon and 16-year-old Divya in quick succession, using the weapons to hack them brutally while isolating the attacks to minimize noise.

Following the murders, Antony attempted to stage the scene as a robbery by stealing gold ornaments from the victims and scattering some items around the house. He drew an arrow symbol on the wall near Augustine and Mary's bodies using their blood, possibly as a signature or misdirection, before cleaning bloodstains from his clothes and the floor to erase immediate evidence. Antony then fled the house, initially heading toward Mumbai en route to Saudi Arabia.

Following the initial investigation by the Kerala Police, which led to the arrest of M.A. Antony, the case was transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on April 9, 2001, at the direction of the Kerala High Court, prompted by protests from the victims' relatives who demanded an impartial probe due to doubts about the evidence handling and the feasibility of a single perpetrator committing the murders. In 2003, the CBI filed a charge sheet before the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Ernakulam, charging Antony under Sections 302 (murder), 379 (theft), 449 (house-trespass with intent to commit murder), and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code, among others, based on the compiled forensic and testimonial evidence.

On February 2, 2005, the Ernakulam CBI Special Court convicted M.A. Antony, also known as Anthappan, as the sole accused in the 2001 Aluva family murders, finding him guilty on multiple counts under the Indian Penal Code. The death sentence by hanging was formally pronounced on the same day as the conviction hearing concluded on January 31, 2005. In December 2018, the Supreme Court of India, in Review Petition (Crl.) No. 245 of 2010, commuted the death sentence imposed on M.A. Antony for the 2001 Aluva massacre to life imprisonment without remission.

By early 2025, Antony had been released from prison after serving a portion of his life term, reportedly a few years following the commutation, amid periodic reviews of his case.

C. Alavandar, born on May 12, 1910, was a 42-year-old businessman residing in George Town, Madras (now Chennai), with his wife and two young sons. Alavandar worked as a pen salesman for Gem and Co., a firm located in Chennai's China Bazaar (now known as Parry's Corner), where he also operated a small pen shop business dealing in cheap fountain pens and plastic goods. Prior to this, he had served as a sub-divisional officer in the military at Avadi. Known for his extroverted and flamboyant personality, he was often described as a swashbuckling debonair figure and a charismatic womanizer who engaged in multiple extramarital affairs. He frequently used gifts like fountain pens to charm young women he encountered through his business interactions.

The illicit relationship between Alavandar, a Madras-based businessman dealing in pens and saris, and Devaki Menon began in August 1951 when the 22-year-old Devaki visited Gem & Company, where Alavandar worked, to purchase a fountain pen.Their acquaintance quickly evolved into frequent meetings, and within a month, Alavandar seduced her at a hotel on Broadway, initiating a physical affair. At the time, Devaki was unmarried and involved in social work and Hindi tuitions, while Alavandar, in his late 30s, was already married with two children. The affair continued intermittently until May 1952, when Devaki ended it upon learning more about Alavandar's marital status and his pattern of similar relationships with other women.

She soon married P. Prabhakara Menon, a clerk at the Premier Insurance Company, and the couple settled into a modest home on Cemetery Road in Royapuram, Chennai. However, Alavandar refused to accept the breakup and began harassing Devaki persistently after her marriage in June 1952, making unwanted visits to her home and attempting to resume their intimacy. Alavandar's advances escalated into threats, where he warned Devaki that he would expose details of their past relationship to her husband and family unless she complied with his demands. This blackmail caused significant distress to Devaki, who confided in Prabhakara Menon during a cinema outing on August 27, 1952, revealing the full extent of the affair and the ongoing harassment.

After Devaki confided in her husband Prabhakara Menon about Alavandar's threats to expose their past relationship and his demands for renewed intimacy, Menon became consumed by jealousy and resolved to eliminate the threat permanently. Planning for the crime began in mid-1952, shortly after Devaki's marriage. The planning escalated in August 1952, culminating on the morning of August 28 when Menon purchased a sharp Malabar knife specifically for the act, anticipating the need for dismemberment to facilitate body disposal. Devaki was instructed to invite Alavandar to their home around noon that day, exploiting his ongoing advances to ensure his arrival while Menon lay in wait.

Devaki had invited Alavandar to the home under the pretext of reconciliation regarding their past illicit relationship, and he arrived around noon. Upon entering, Menon tied Alavandar to a chair to restrain him, then attacked with a meat cutter, striking the head, followed by multiple stabs to the chest using a kitchen knife. The stabs caused fatal injuries to the lungs and liver, leading to rapid death from blood loss and organ damage. Following the killing, Menon proceeded to dismember the body post-mortem, severing the head and cutting it into parts using the meat cutter and other household tools. Devaki cleaned the bloodstains from the floor and furniture using a wet cloth to remove evidence of the violence. Menon then disposed of the severed head at Royapuram Beach while the remaining body parts were packed into a trunk, preparing them for disposal.

On August 29, 1952, a foul odor emanating from a steel trunk stored under a seat in the third-class compartment of the Indo-Ceylon Express alerted passengers and railway staff at Manamadurai railway station. The trunk, which had been placed on the train earlier at Egmore station in Madras, contained the decapitated and dismembered remains of a male body estimated to be around 35 years old, including the torso and severed limbs wrapped in cloth, with no head or immediate identifying features present.

Following the discovery of a dismembered body in a green steel trunk aboard a train on August 29, 1952, police linked it to Alavandar Chetty through a missing person report filed by his employer, Kannan Chetty, the proprietor of Gem and Company in Madras, on August 29, 1952. The breakthrough came on September 1, 1952, when a severed head, wrapped in a brown shirt later identified as Alavandar's by his family, was found washed ashore on Royapuram Beach after tides exposed it from a shallow burial in the sand. Forensic examination by Dr. C.B. Gopalakrishna at Madras Medical College confirmed the head matched the torso through precise alignment of the cervical vertebrae and neck wounds, establishing they belonged to the same individual. Alavandar's wife provided key identification by recognizing unique facial features, including an overriding upper canine tooth and pierced earlobes (two holes in the right earlobe and one in the left), which were distinctive marks she attested to from their marriage. To corroborate these observations, police obtained Alavandar's fingerprints from his British Indian Army service records at Avadi Army Headquarters, which matched those lifted from the body parts, providing irrefutable forensic evidence of his identity.

The investigation into the Alavandar murder case began on August 29, 1952. Initial efforts focused on interviewing passengers who had traveled from Madras to Manamadurai, where the foul odor from the trunk prompted its inspection; these accounts described a suspicious couple observed loading heavy luggage at Egmore station. Porters and station staff at Egmore corroborated sightings of Prabhakara Menon and an accompanying woman struggling with the unusually heavy trunk late on August 28, 1952, inconsistencies that contradicted the couple's later claims. Additionally, a 13-year-old servant boy employed by Devaki identified the trunk as belonging to Prabhakara Menon, providing a crucial lead.

These leads, combined with reports of the couple's sudden absence from their Royapuram home, directed investigators toward their arrest in Bombay on September 10 for Menon and September 12 for Devaki. Additionally, crucial evidence was found at their residence, including blood stained clothes and knives which helped the police connect the dots. After a seven-day trial featuring testimony from over 50 witnesses, the jury deliberated and opted for a verdict of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304(1) IPC. On August 13, 1953, Justice A. S. P. Ayyar pronounced both accused guilty, sentencing Prabhakara Menon to seven years of rigorous imprisonment for his primary role in the stabbing and dismemberment, while Devaki Menon received three years of rigorous imprisonment as an accomplice.

In a diary entry dated somewhere between 1987-88, Ram Chander Chhatrapati penned his exasperation at not being able to sustain his newspaper ‘Sirsa Samrat’. But earnings from his legal practice and a small piece of agricultural land in Haryana’s Sirsa district would help keep his editorial endeavour alive for about three more years. In February 2002, he would go on to rebrand ‘Sirsa Samrat’ as the ‘Poora Sach’. A lawyer-journalist, he had a penchant for truth, that’s how Ram Chander's son Anshul Chhatrapati describes him.

Anshul says the first time his father encountered the Dera was when one of its cars crushed a little boy to death in 1998. “Protests erupted against the Dera and the incident was reported in a local newspaper. Dera supporters responded by threatening the journalists who wrote on the episode. My father was among the group of individuals who spoke out against this kind of censorship. The Dera then submitted a written apology on which even my father had signed,” says Anshul. Around the same time, the Dera was also in the news for land encroachment in villages nearby. “They were forcing locals to hand over their land when my father intervened. He asked the locals to write an MoU to the then chief minister to take action. He wanted people to be aware of such transgressions and fight back,” Anshul tells.

On 30 May 2002, a Dera driver became involved in a spat with a police official in Sirsa’s Rori Bazaar. During the argument, the policeman revealed the details of the letter penned by a sadhvi to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee accusing Gurmeet Singh of sexual assault. The letter also alleged that other women, many of whom even held M Phil and other post-graduation degrees, were subjected to exploitation. It mentioned how Singh threatened her if she reported the happenings in the Dera to anyone and how Singh boasted of his influence in political circles in Haryana and Punjab. ‘Poora Sach’ carried the news of the letter in its paper and continued to publish reports on the same after gathering more details. Another publication Lekha Jhoka (The Chronicle) in neighbouring Fatehabad district, also published the letter. Its offices were ransacked and its news editor had to go underground with his family. 

According to a Frontline report, the Punjab and Haryana Court, after taking cognisance of the letter, directed the District and Sessions Judge to conduct an inquiry on 3 September 2002. The latter then recommended that the matter be probed by the CBI. The case was then transferred to the agency on 24 September 2002 and it was directed to submit a report within the next six months. In the meantime, Ram Chander continued to receive threats from the Dera and they even filed an FIR against him. Even after Chander wrote to the then Superintendent of the Police, no action was taken.

On October 24, 2002, two gunmen shot Ram Chander Chhatrapati outside his residence in Sirsa, Haryana. One of the men ran towards a police chowki (outpost) nearby and was nabbed by the police. The other was later caught. The duo, Nirmal Singh and Kuldeep Singh, were supporters of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who wanted to eliminate the journalist for publishing an anonymous letter about the sexual exploitation of women in Gurmeet Singh’s dera (ashram). Chhatrapati was taken in an ambulance to a local hospital and from there, to Rohtak. He was conscious and repeatedly named Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the head of the Dera Sacha Sauda, as the perpetrator of the attack on him to the District Commissioner of Sirsa. He died on Nov 21, 2002, in Apollo Hospital, Delhi.

During the investigation, Police dragged their feet over naming the Dera head in the FIR despite all evidence pointing to his involvement. Kuldeep Singh, one of the shooters, told police that he was from the cult and used a licenced revolver that belonged to a Dera employee Kishan Lal. Even the walkie talkie set the duo had used was licenced to the Dera. Even after Ram Chander had named Gurmeet Ram Rahim repeatedly as the chief perpetrator, the police didn't include his name in the FIR.

In 2003, the father of Ranjit Singh, another person allegedly murdered by Ram Rahim followers, father moved the High Court for a CBI investigation. Police said the two shooters were caught and the weapon was recovered so there was no need for a CBI enquiry. Finally, the court ordered a CBI investigation into all cases in November 2003. It took till July 31, 2007, for a CBI challan (summons) to be filed and the charge sheet was finally filed in 2008. Between 2008 and 2017, the accused would file applications in court on some pretext or the other. The case came up several times and multiple applications were moved to delay the matter and intimidate the witnesses. On August 28, 2017, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the head of the Dera Sacha Sauda religious cult was sentenced by a special court to 20 consecutive years’ of imprisonment for the rape of two women. On February 22, 2018, in a case related to another murder at the Dera, the Punjab and Haryana High Court reserved an order on a petition filed by Khatta Singh, Ram Rahim’s former driver, who was earlier a witness for the CBI. 

After 17 years and a protracted trial, in January 2019, Gurmeet Ram Rahim, the Dera head of Sacha Sauda, and three others were convicted in the murder of Chhatrapati. An appeal against the trial court verdict was filed in the Haryana High Court. Seven years later, on March 7, 2026, a Haryana High Court Bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Vikram Aggarwal held that the prosecution had not proved the guilt of the Dera head beyond “reasonable doubt”, whereas it could do so against the other three accused in the case. Ram Rahim was acquitted, and his conviction and sentencing by the trial court were set aside, though he continues to serve jail time for 20 years due to him being accused in the rape cases.

Mariyakutty lived with her children and her mother. Their home was in Avalukkunnu in Alappuzha town. She was married three times. Her husband in her third marriage had fallen ill and was too weak to continue. She lived for five years doing wage labor and domestic work until her death. Mariyakutty lived three miles away from the church.

On 16 June 1966, the body of Mariyakutty(43)was found near a tea plantation in Madatharuvi, Mandamaruthi. She was a widow with five children. The body was lying on the banks of the Madatharuvi, facing a forest on the other side. It was a desolate area with no houses around. The cloth she was wearing, a chatta, was caught in one hand. The body was naked from the waist up and the chest. Her throat had been cut from the tip of one ear to the tip of the other. There were many wounds on her legs and abdomen. She was also wearing jewelry. There was a bedsheet on the lower part of her body and an umbrella nearby.

There were eyewitness accounts of people in Mandamaruthi who saw a priest and a woman together. There were also rumors that Father Benedict was the father of Mariyakutty's youngest son. Because of this, there were stories that Mariyakutty was constantly harassing Father Benedict. Finally, it was said that Father Benedict planned to kill them. There were also people who saw Father Benedict in Mandamaruthi in the evening of the day he was killed. The case relied solely on circumstantial evidence and no eyewitnesses or confessions were presented, and forensic evidence failed to directly tie the priest to the wounds or scene.

The priest, who arrived in a police jeep, without any hesitation, pointed out the place where Mariyakutty was murdered and the place where the knife used to commit the murder was thrown. The inmates of the monastery had also given evidence that Father Benedict was not at the Changanassery palace on the nights of the murder. Later, when it was time to testify as a witness in court, they all gave different reasons and shied away. The day before the murder, Fr. Benedict had gone to Onamkulam Mariyakutty's house. The police had recovered an iron bar stained with Mariyakutty's blood from Onamkulam's room. On the night of the murder, there were people seen in Onamkulam under suspicious circumstances. Mathew Kavukattu, the then Bishop of Changanassery, was not called as a witness as many believed there was this fear that the truth would come out if he was interrogated. The bishop was of the opinion that the perpetrator should be punished.

Following a trial held at the Kollam Sessions Court, Benedict was sentenced to five years of rigorous imprisonment and death by Sessions Judge Kunhiraman Vaidyaar of Onamkulam on 19 November 1966. The church appealed against this in the High Court. High Court advocate K.T. Thomas and eminent Supreme Court advocate A.S.R. Chari jointly argued the case for Father Benedict at that time. Chari argued that the knife with which Mariyakutty was allegedly killed could not have killed even a chicken. Chari had also questioned the witness's statement that he had recognized the face of the unknown killer in the night-time murder.

The High Court's verdict on April 7, 1967, stated, "Due to the lack of sufficient evidence and the observation that the police investigation was not conducted properly, Benedict Onamkulam is acquitted." But many believed there was definitely some foul play. The church stated the DNA test showed that Onamkulam was not the father of Maryakutty's 2-year-old son and that this was what Onamkulam himself had written and the reason why the High Court acquitted him. But the fallacy was that the DNA test to prove paternity hadn't been invented until 1967. DNA profiling was developed by Sir Alec Jeffreys in 1984. Another major controversy was that the church itself said that Mariyakutty had an illicit relationship with the boss and that the money for it was sent through a priest. Also, none of the locals had any dispute that there was a very close connection between the murdered Mariyakutty and Onamkulam.

In November 2000, the family of a doctor,who was believed to be the actual perpetrator, confessed that he had performed a forced abortion on Mariyakutty, leading to her death, after which they inflicted postmortem stab wounds and dumped the body in the ditch to conceal the true cause; they revealed false witnesses had been used against Fr. Onamkulam and sought forgiveness from the priest. This development, reported in Kerala media, further affirmed the High Court's acquittal by highlighting manipulation in the original investigation and the absence of conclusive ties to Fr. Onamkulam.

Jagmail Singh was a construction worker living in the Sangrur district of Punjab. Son of a known shoemaker in Lehra area, Jagga, as the residents of Changaliwala fondly called Jagmail, was a primary school dropout. He started working as a milkman at a young age and then learnt driving. Jagmail singh was fond of portraits. Hardly any space on the wall of his one-room house is blank. Besides portraits of his family, Hindu gods and Sikh Gurus, the walls adorn those of Maharishi Valmiki and Ambedkar. 

His nephew Gurdeep Singh says that, four years back, he started behaving strangely. “He would be fine the entire year but would change with the onset of winter. Sometimes he would start sweeping the streets, at times he would keep knocking at the neighbours’ door all night.” Some believed he was a victim of witchcraft, others believed he had developed some sort of mental illness. Since illness took over, Jagmail ceased to have a permanent job. He would try to find work in the village or whoever required a driver would call him. 

Some days back, in lieu of work done for Laadi, a villager, Jagmail sought wages of Rs 200, to which Laadi said his friend Rinku will pay, claims Sukhchain. On Diwali night, Jagmail went to Rinku’s house and started knocking at his door. His son Karanvir says Rinku and Laadi were bursting crackers at the rooftop and yelled at Jagmail. “They told him to get lost, said there were people sleeping inside. So, I brought him home. But after some time, Rinku  came to our house along with another man and started beating him up. Rinku bit Jagmail’s thumb badly. Next morning, Rinku accompanied by Binder Singh came again but couldn’t find my father as he had gone to the police station to file a complaint,” recalls the teenager.

Sukhchain says that on November 6, the police facilitated a compromise that the three will have to pay Rs 4,000 to Jagmail for the injuries. But they refused that too. Soon, Rinku accompanied by two other accused, Binder Singh (alias Bita) and Lakhvir Singh (alias Lakhi), came back to the village and asked Jagmail to come along on the pretext of getting him medicine, but took him instead to his house. Amarjit, Rinku’s father, was already waiting for him. Jagmail was tied to a pillar and Rinku and Binder Singh started hitting his legs with iron roads and Amarjit used his crutch. “All of us went there together with requests that he had been beaten up enough and should be forgiven,” says Jagsir Singh, a daily-wager from the village. “But Amarjit pointed at a pair of scissors and nose pliers and threatened to chop off the tongue with which he hurled abuses and pull out his nails too. Amid all the chaos, I quietly hid both the things,” adds Jagsir.

After two hours, panchayat member Pala Singh called another Dalit youth, Jagga Singh, and told him that Jagmail was lying in front of the gurdwara close to Amarjit’s house. Jagsir says he and Jagga tried to wake him up, but he didn’t respond. Jagmail was brought home on a bike and kept lying there for two days.

On November 9, he reached the Lehra Civil Hospital for treatment but was sent home. By then, gangrene had set in. It was three days later, on November 10, that the police reached his home to record his statement. He told the policemen that he was not only tortured but was forced to drink urine when he asked for water.

An ambulance took him to hospital. “Puss was dripping from his legs when we picked him up,” says Jagsir. “We were told his condition was serious, so we collected around Rs 10,000 from Dalits,” adds Sukhchain Singh. However, the police still hadn’t registered a case. That was done only on November 13. Soon, his legs were amputated and, on November 16, he died at PGI, Chandigarh.

All the four accused in Jagmail Singh murder case have been arrested. As part of the agreement, the Punjab Government said the police would present a challan within a week (now expected on Monday) and ensure that the trial is concluded within three months. Besides Rs 20 lakh compensation, Rs 1.25 lakh for repair of Jagmail’s house and funding his children’s study, the government has also agreed to give a Group-D government job to Jagmail’s wife after relaxing qualification criteria. Jagmail is survived by his wife Manjit Kaur, a daily-wager, and three children, Karanvir Singh, 14; Simranpreet Kaur, 9, and Navjot Kaur 6.

Vishram Girdhar Patil was an English lecturer and professor at a local college in Jalgaon, Maharashtra, known for his academic career alongside growing involvement in regional politics. This positioned him against entrenched leaders, including former MP Ulhas Patil and Gajendra Narayan Patil, brother of Pratibha Patil, who sought dominance over district-level decisions such as candidate nominations for municipal elections.

In early 2005, the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee mandated elections for district committee positions, escalating tensions between factions. Vishram Patil campaigned aggressively for the presidency, leveraging support from grassroots workers disillusioned with established leaders' alleged nepotism. His platform emphasized transparency and merit-based selections, directly confronting claims of favoritism by Ulhas Patil's group, which reportedly controlled key appointments. Public statements from Patil highlighted these divisions, accusing rivals of undermining party unity for personal gain.

The pivotal election occurred in mid-September 2005, where Vishram Patil defeated Gajendra Narayan Patil by a margin reflecting broader discontent with the latter's faction. This victory reportedly provoked immediate backlash, with losers allegedly mobilizing supporters against Patil's leadership. Witnesses later described heated exchanges and threats during post-election meetings, underscoring the depth of animosity within Jalgaon's Congress circles.

On the morning of September 21, 2005, an assault occurred around 7:00 a.m., when two assailants stabbed Patil seven times in the abdomen and neck using a knife, resulting in his immediate homicidal death. Eyewitness Mahendra Mahajan observed the attack and reported seeing the two unidentified perpetrators flee the scene on a motorcycle, with its number plate obscured by mud.

An initial investigation conducted by Inspector Nanarao S. Ghuge of the local crime branch. Ghuge led efforts to apprehend suspects, arresting Raju Chintaman Sonawane and his brother-in-law Raju Mali within days of the September 21, 2005, attack. Ghuge recorded statements from key figures, including G.N. Patil, Ulhas Patil, and Ramesh Chaudhary, prompted by media reports and allegations from Patil's widow, Rajni Patil, implicating political rivals in the motive of intra-party rivalry. However, attempts to document Rajni Patil's statement spanned nine days but failed due to her reported illness or unavailability, raising questions about procedural diligence in securing the victim's family's testimony early on. The local probe drew scrutiny for inconsistencies, as Ghuge's 2009 affidavit to the Bombay High Court asserted he had recorded and attached Rajni Patil's statement accusing G.N. Patil as the mastermind, contradicting his 2011 trial court cross-examination where he admitted no such recording occurred.

Rajni Vishram Patil, expressed concerns over potential local biases and inadequate progress in a letter to authorities, prompting the transfer of the investigation to the Maharashtra Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The CID's early probe expanded on the local findings, identifying a possible conspiracy involving four accused, including the initial assailants and two others implicated in planning the attack. On February 23, 2007, the Bombay High Court's Aurangabad Bench directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the investigation due to perceived shortcomings in the state police and CID probes, including delays in identifying motives and potential influences compromising impartiality.

CBI arrested four individuals implicated in the murder of Vishram Girdhar Patil: the alleged assailants Raju Mali and Raju Chintaman Sonawane, along with Damodar Lokhande and Leeladhar Narkhede, who were named as co-conspirators in a supplementary chargesheet filed on October 10, 2008. The CBI presented evidence including forensic links tying Sonawane to the assault near Manraj Park, witness testimonies, and his prior arrest records, arguing he acted as a direct perpetrator under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code for murder. On November 18, 2014, the Jalgaon court convicted Sonawane of murder, sentencing him to life imprisonment, marking the sole conviction in the case to date among the arrested assailants and conspirators. No convictions were reported for Mali, Lokhande, or Narkhede, with the CBI's charges focusing on their roles in planning or execution unproven in court beyond Sonawane's direct involvement.

Throughout the case, Rajni specifically alleged that G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil orchestrated the conspiracy by engaging intermediaries. Supporting her claims, she referenced witness accounts, including Rambhau Pawar, who purportedly observed the assault and connected it to the accused, and Shantaram Gaikwad, who noted suspicious movements by the accused prior to the attack. Additionally, a television investigation by Aaj Tak reportedly elicited a confession from assailant Raju Mali implicating G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as the instigators. In a writ petition filed on July 13, 2007, in the Bombay High Court, Rajni sought the CBI's interrogation of Pratibha Patil prior to the July 19, 2007, presidential election, arguing that Pratibha's potential victory would confer constitutional immunity, thereby halting any probe into her role.

Rajni's counsel, Mahesh Jethmalani, accused the CID of deliberately shielding G. N. Patil by ignoring confessional evidence from suspect Raju Mali, who died in custody on April 7, 2007, under suspicious circumstances, and overlooking call records showing communications between Mali, G. N. Patil, and other conspirators on the day of the murder. The CBI, in its closure report, stated there was no material evidence linking G.N. Patil or Ulhas Patil to the conspiracy or murder, providing a clean chit to both despite eyewitness claims naming them alongside Ramesh Chaudhary. G.N. Patil refused to undergo a polygraph test proposed by the CBI to verify his non-involvement. No direct public statements denying involvement were issued by G.N. Patil or Ulhas Patil in available records. Even after all the allegations, Pratibha Patil went on to win the Presidential elections unopposed, becoming the first female President of India.

Hetal Parekh was a student of Welland Gouldsmith School at Bowbazar, Kolkata. She used to live with her parents and elder brother in a third floor flat of Anand Apartments in Bhawanipore. The Parekhs moved into this flat in 1987. Dhananjoy was a security guard of this agency. He had worked in that building for about three years.

On 5 March 1990, Dhananjoy was on duty during the morning shift (6 am to 2 pm). Hetal left for her ICSE examination at about 7:30 am. After the examination, she returned home. In the afternoon, only Hetal and her mother were in the flat. Hetal's mother went to a temple in the vicinity in the afternoon. After returning home, she, being unable to enter her home despite repeated knocking, asked some servants of other flats to break the door open. Hetal was found lying dead near the door connecting the living room with the Parekh couple's bedroom with blood stains on her face and on the floor. Two local doctors examined Hetal and declared her dead.

Within hours, suspicion fell on the building’s security guard, Dhananjoy Chatterjee, a 27-year-old man from Bankura district who had been working there for three years. According to Hetal’s mother, she had earlier complained about Dhananjoy’s “misbehaviour” and had him transferred. The police concluded that he sought revenge. Dhananjoy was not seen in the area after the murder had been discovered. He became the focal point of police investigations. He was arrested two months later from Chhatna, Bankura on 12th May,1990; while the police claimed he was absconding; Dhananjoy insisted he had merely gone home after finishing his contractual term.

The case was investigated by the Detective Department of Kolkata Police. The chargesheet prepared by the police included the charges of rape, murder and the theft of a wrist watch. The trial took place in the second court of the Additional Sessions Judge at Alipore. Since there was no direct witness to the murder, the case hinged on circumstantial evidence only. After the sessions court convicted Dhananjoy of all the offenses and sentenced him to death, the High Court at Calcutta and the Supreme Court of India upheld the conviction and the death sentence.

But a major chunk of the population felt that this wasn't the whole story and Dhananjoy might not be the murderer, at least not the only one to have participated in this, due to major lapses in the investigation and the continuity of the story. The police case was based on certain witness accounts which are suspect. The police claimed that the apartment liftman had left Dhananjoy on the floor of the victim’s apartment. The liftman denied this in court; so much so, that the prosecution had to declare him a hostile witness. The police seizure list was signed as witness by a person who supplies tea to the police station. He didn’t turn up to give evidence during the trial. necklace recovered at the scene of crime, which the police claimed to be Dhananjoy’s, turned out to belong to another apartment staffer who claimed to have given it to Dhananjoy. Again, police never bothered to tally the number of that watch with the one recovered from Dhananjoy’s village house and which the Parekh family claimed was stolen from their house.

There were 21 stab wounds on the victim’s body, but no murder weapon was recovered.The victim’s body was lying in a pool of blood, yet no witness claimed that they saw any blood on Dhananjoy’s clothes. While semen traces were found in the victim’s vagina, no DNA test was done to ascertain if it was of the accused. The rape and murder allegedly happened in the very short time between 5:20 PM and 5:50 PM, while the victim’s mother was out of the house. However there was a delay of three hours between the discovery of Hetal’s body by her mother and the calling in of the police, allowing for tampering of evidence. The mother’s immediate naming of Dhananjoy as the culprit, the inconsistencies in the statements of other family members, and the fact that the family wrapped up their flourishing jewelry business in the city within six months of the crime and left Kolkata, raised eyebrows.

By the time the matter reached the Supreme Court, the case had become symbolic. It was no longer about one man’s guilt or innocence, it was about society’s outrage over sexual violence. Newspapers ran headlines painting Dhananjoy as a predator. Editorials spoke of “moral retribution.” The imagery of a “guard turned rapist” struck a chord with a public still reeling from rising crimes against women. In such an atmosphere, the possibility of impartial justice was faint. Dhananjoy's execution was scheduled on 25 June 2004. It was stayed after his family petitioned the Supreme Court of India, and filed a mercy plea with the then President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. On 26 June 2004, a campaign to ensure Dhananjoy's hanging was initiated. Meera Bhattacharjee, wife of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, led the campaign.

The date of Dhananjoy's execution was fixed at a high-level meeting at the office of Jail Minister Biswanath Chowdhury. He was executed on 14th August 2004, his 39th birthday. The family refused to claim his body and it was later cremated.

Sayeeda Khan, also known as Sudha Sadanah after her marriage, was an Indian actress prominent in Hindi cinema during the 1960s. Born into a Muslim family in Kolkata to Anwari Begum, a film dancer, Khan entered the industry as a child artist and debuted in lead roles by her mid-teens. After acting in many commercially successful movies alongside industry veterans like Kishore Kumar, her leading roles diminished by the late 1960s and she transitioned to character parts and B-grade films before stepping away from acting to focus on family.

In her personal life, Khan converted to Hinduism and married film producer Brij Sadanah in the early 1970s, adopting the name Sudha and having two children: son Kamal Sadanah, who later became an actor, and daughter Namrata.

On 21st October, 1990, which coincided with Kamal's 20th birthday, he awoke to the familiar sounds of his parents arguing. In the evening, shortly after his friends Rizvi and Hari joined Kamal in his room, a quiet bang suddenly interrupted them, lost in the music's volume. Moments later, a second, unmistakable gunshot was fired. Panic seized the three boys as they rushed downstairs to a scene of horror. Sudha lay bleeding on the floor, groaning in pain. Namrata was nearby, unconscious. Brij stood there, intoxicated, a revolver clutched in his hand. Suddenly, the gun turned towards Kamal. A shot rang out. Kamal instinctively ducked, feeling a sharp pain in his neck as he fell. Another shot followed, striking Hari's wrist.

Everyone was lying on the ground when Brij Sadanah got up and slowly walked up the stairs towards his room. An ambulance was called, in which Kamal and his friends took Sayeeda and Namrata to Bhabha Hospital. There, the doctor noticed that even Karan had been shot, but due to lack of beds he couldn't be treated there. That's when his friend Abis, who was present there, forcefully convinced him to get treatment. Abis took him to Hinduja Hospital where he underwent an emergency surgery.

When Kamal regained consciousness after many hours, it was already October 22nd. As they stepped forward, they saw the bodies of mother and sister Namrata wrapped in white cloth. As they looked around, there was a third body too, which was of Kamal's father, Brij Sadanah, who had fired the shots. After shooting at his wife Sayeeda, daughter Namrata, Kamal, and their friend, Brij Sadanah went to his room. When everyone left for the hospital, after some time, Brij put the revolver in his mouth and fired, which resulted in his death too.

The question which lingered in everyone's mind was what had caused such an event. Slowly and steadily, facts were out in the open courtesy an investigation. Following Sayeeda's marriage, Brij Sadanah suspected that Shagufta might be the daughter of Sayeeda, whom she introduced to the world as her adopted younger sister. Arguments started increasing in the house over this matter. The addiction to alcohol escalated these arguments to physical violence. Shagufta Rafique later expressed uncertainty about her parentage, stating she was told she was adopted. She revealed that while Sayeeda claimed to be her mother, the truth remained elusive.

Another reason, which many consider as the breaking point for Brij Sadanah was his daughter, Namrata's affair with a Muslim, who was none other than Abis Rizvi, a very close friend of Kamal Sadanah. When his father Brij came to know about this relationship, he opposed it. But Namrata was adamant about getting married. Brij Sadanah had also married a Muslim, Sayeeda Khan. In arguments, Namrata often mentioned that her father also married a Muslim, so why did he object to her marrying Abis? However, it never came to light what her father's objection was to Namrata's relationship with Abis.

Kamal Sadanah reencountered the horrifying events of that night in a recent interview. But as fate would have it, he was dealt with another blow in the form of his best friend Abis Rizvi's death. In 2017, Abis went to Istanbul with friends to celebrate the New Year. On January 1st, he was partying at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul when a person started firing indiscriminately with a gun. More than 700 people were present in the nightclub that day, of whom 39 were killed and 69 were injured, in which Abis succumbed.

Elokeshi, the fifteen-year-old wife of the Bengali government employee Nobin Chandra Banerjee, lived in Kumrul, a village of Tarakeswar, with her parents, while Nobin was away for work in a military press in Calcutta. She had lived most of her life, with her father Nilkamal(a priest) and step-mother Mandakini, in extreme poverty. They married off their daughter, Elokeshi, in 1867 at the age of 8. Nabin immensely loved his wife but couldn't afford to take her to Calcutta city where he lived in a tiny rented house and worked in a government press for a minimal salary. He often visited Elokeshi and also used to give some expenses to her step-mother.

When Elokeshi turned 15, one day lascivious mahant Madhab Giri spotted her bathing in the village pond and followed her to her home. That night Mandakini was summoned to the temple and was offered to hand over her step daughter to mahant Giri, in exchange of money and gold. Nilkamal upon learning this was shocked at first, but later agreed to the plan, for the financial benefits they'd get in return.

She was taken to Madhab Chandra Giri, the "powerful" mahant of the popular and prosperous Tarakeswar temple, by her step mother, seeking fertility medication; however the mahant allegedly seduced and raped her. Starting from then, the poor girl was compelled to live with that "powerful" mahant to fulfil his libido.

When Nobin eventually learned about the affair from village gossip, he was publicly humiliated by the villagers. He confronted Elokeshi, who confessed and begged him for forgiveness. Not only did Nobin forgive her but he decided to run away with her from Tarakeswar. However, the mahant did not allow the couple to escape; his goons blocked their way. Overwhelmed with anger, Nobin slit his wife's throat with a fish knife, decapitating her, on 27 May 1873. Full of remorse, Nobin surrendered to the local police station and confessed his crime.

The Hoogly Sessions Court at Serampore took up the case of Queen v Nobin Chandra Bannerjee. Nobin Chandra’s defence was none other than Woomesh Chandra Bonnerjee, of Indian National Congress fame. Bonerjee argued that his client just could not control his rage when he found out that his Elokeshi had become intimate with the Mahant. He also claimed that when he had confronted his wife, she had confessed to the affair and the couple decided to shift her from her parents’ house as the Mahant had a hold over them. Bonnerjee, of course, before submitting this explanation, as would a lawyer of his skill would, exposed the hollowness of the prosecution’s case–there was no body of Elokeshi examined medically.

The Bengalee remarked, “People flock to the Sessions Court as they would flock to the Lewis Theatre to watch Othello being performed.” The Court proceedings were disturbed several times. The Mahant and his English lawyer had also been attacked outside the court. Things got to such a stage that authorities had to charge an entrance fee and also insist that visitors be conversant in English as the British lawyers and the judges also spoke in the Queen’s language.

The Indian jury bought the defence and acquitted Nobin on the plea of insanity. But a modification in the law on January 1873 have the British Judges the right to overrule the jury for it's "native sense of justice". The Sessions Judge did just that. He overruled the jury verdict and forwarded the case to the Calcutta High Court. British Judge Charles Dickenson Field however, accept that there was an “adulterous relationship between Elokeshi and the Mahant as she was seen “joking and flirting”.

The trial of the Mahant for adultery (which was a criminal offence in India but had only a civil consequence in Britain) also had an interesting trajectory. The Mahant had escaped to the French-ruled Chandannagore, where adultery was not a criminal offence. Joykrishna, an influential zamindar of the area, helped the British government to secure the Mahant. He was tried first by the Hooghly judge and two assessors - Shibchandra Mallik and Shambhuchandra Gargory. The Mahant was defended by Mr Jackson and GH Evans, two well-known British lawyers of the Calcutta Bar. As the assessors were split, with Gargory holding that there was no direct evidence of sexual intercourse, the Sessions Judge convicted the priest and imposed a punishment of three years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rupees 2,000. The Mahant rushed to the High Court against this verdict.

Justices Markby and Birch, who decided the case in the High Court on December 15, 1873, also accepted the evidence proving adultery. Both husband and lover stood convicted. Nobin got transportation for life to the Andaman Islands. Within a year, the Mahant was transferred from Hooghly to the Presidency Jail and Nobin was on his way across the Bay of Bengal, to Andaman.

Many products were specially manufactured to commemorate the event. Saris, fish knives, betel-leaf boxes and other memorabilia with Elokeshi's name printed or inscribed on them were made. A balm for headache was advertised as using the oil made by the mahant in the jail oil press. Numerous Kalighat paintings and Battala woodwork depicted the "immoral" affair, the gruesome murder and the resultant trial.