Homeless people were hit to death while they slept. All the murders took place at night and were committed by using a hard, blunt object. The Mumbai police and the media realised that a serial killer was operating in the city.
At the time a suspicious looking man found loitering in the area had been picked up by the police. His name was Raman Raghav, a homeless man, and he was already in police files, having spent 5 years in prison for robbery. However, as no hard evidence could be found against him (none of the survivors had seen this man) the police let him go.When the killer struck again in 1968 the police launched a manhunt for him. Ramakant Kulkarni, then the Deputy Commissioner of Police CID (Crime)took over the investigation and created a massive combing operation in the city. This time the police not only managed to nab him, they got him to confess.
He admitted that he had killed 23 people in 1966 along the GIP (Great Indian Peninsular Railway as the Central Railway (India) was then known) line and almost a dozen in 1968 in the suburbs. However, it is likely that he killed many more. It was his casual approach to killing that led the police to suspect that he did not remember the exact number of people he had killed.
During the time Raman Raghav was in operation, there was widespread public anxiety and panic in Mumbai. People in slums and apartments dreaded sleeping out in the open or with open windows and balconies.
They found out it was him from pictures of witnesses.
For a long time, Raghav refused to answer questions. However, he began to answer their questions after the police fulfilled his request for dishes of chicken to eat. He then gave a detailed explanation, describing his weapon and other things like this.
Things that he said in his interveiws:
That there are two distinct worlds, the world of *'Kanoon' and this world in which he lived.
A fixed and unshakable belief that people were trying to change his sex, but that they are not successful, because he was a representative of *'Kanoon'.
A fixed and unshakable belief that he is a power or 'Shakti'.
A firm belief that other people are trying to put homosexual temptations in his way so that he may succumb and get converted to a woman.
That homosexual intercourse would convert him into a woman.
That he was "101 percent man". He kept on repeating this.
A belief that the government brought him to Mumbai to commit thefts and made him commit criminal acts.
An unshakable belief that there are three governments in the country - the Akbar Government, the British Government, and the Congress Government and that these Governments are trying to persecute him and put temptations before him."
*Kanoon-God
Raman Raghav's sentence was reduced to life imprisonment because he was found to be incurably mentally ill. He was lodged at Yerwada jail, Pune, and was under treatment at the Central Institute of Mental Health and Research. When a panel of doctors who examined him at the directive of the High Court found that he would never be cured, the High Court reduced his sentence to life imprisonment in its judgement of 4th August 1987. A few months later Raghav died at Sassoon Hospital. He had been suffering from kidney trouble.
Raman was India's worst serial killer and even had a movie made about him
This is the end of my report next week im going on my first proper investigation and im sure these facts will come in handy. I hope that some other people will learn from this !!!
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