Reincarnating Stone killers of India

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Analysis of media reports for the past one century reveals a pattern in a replay over and over again. There are some striking similarities in the modus operandi of several serial killing incidents reported throughout India, and often these clusters of serial killings are from different states of India. In many such cases, the offenders are arrested and convicted by the courts, but the killings are repeated by a new perpetrator with similar modus operandi.

In the mid-1960s a series of murders occurred on the outskirts of Bombay. Pavement dwellers and inmates of ramshackle huts were bludgeoned to death using a hard, blunt object while they slept. The eastern suburbs of Bombay also witnessed a similar series of murders. When news spread through the media, it resulted in widespread public anxiety and panic in Bombay. Inhabitants of the city who slept in the open spend sleepless nights. The police finally arrested a man named Raman Raghav who confessed to have committed around fifty people. Perhaps the case of Raman Raghav was the first case of serial killing, which was widely reported in mass media throughout India. Raghav was found to be mentally ill during a psychiatric evaluation, and he spent the rest of his life in prison.

From 1985 to 1988 in Bombay, a series of similar murders were reported. Police investigation did not make an arrest this time; however, the killings stopped all of a sudden. A new series of thirteen murders were reported in 1989 in Calcutta, and all the victims were homeless people slept in the open. All the murders were committed during the night, and in all cases, some heavy blunt objects were used for crushing the head of the people. The print media of Calcutta named the unidentified perpetrator 'the Stone Man'.

The incidents of stone killers are not ending here, and cases started popping up from time to time. In the year 2000, the police arrested a man named Maheswar Padhi for killing seven people by smashing their heads with a stone and injuring another four in three months in Orissa. He was again called "the Stoneman" by the media. He killed the people when they were asleep.

Motta Navas (40) was a Serial Killer operated in the city of Kollam, Kerala, between June and August 2012. Pavement dwellers were bludgeoned to death while they slept. All the murders took place at night and were committed with stones or hard blunt objects.

Sachin Ramdas Vaishnav (30), a resident of Maliwada village in Aurangabad was arrested by the police for murdering six beggars in Shirdi, a town in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, in August 2013. He killed the victims by smashing their heads with a stone, while they were asleep. Six beggars were killed in three separate incidents within a month.

In September 2014, the police arrested a Serial Killer and rapist in Salem district in Tamil Nadu. They charged him with murdering seven people, including five women and a two-year-old girl, in a murder span that lasted 15 days. The accused Subbarayan (27) was a truck driver from Kathiripatti Village in Salem and committed the murders in Ariyalur and Trichy districts. He targeted women who lived alone in secluded areas.

The latest addition to the stone killer was a serial killer from Kochi in Kerala who has killed at least nine victims. Since 2007 Panikar Kunjumon(42) killed the city's homeless destitute and rag pickers who slept in open spaces during the night. The offender used concrete blocks or stones that crush their skull with a single blow   

The above serial killings committed by different perpetrators during different times have a lot in common. There are striking resemblances in the modus operandi of the offenders such as, choosing of time, weapon, victims nature, and method of killing. All murders happened during the night. In all the known cases the perpetrators used a blunt object or a stone as weapons. The method of attack was one fatal blow to the head of the victims. All victims were poor, and most of them were beggars or rag pickers. One more factor which connects all these cases and which assumes special significance here is that all the above cases were widely reported in media with varying popularity. The relevant question which needs to be discussed in length and breadth here is, are these offenders aware of the happening of earlier similar cases? If yes, how far these cases inspired them to commit the murders or even inspired them to choose the modus operandi in question.

The article is written by S. A. Deepak, Ph.D. He is an Assistant Professor of Criminology at D.G. Vaishnav College. You can read his books on serial Killers in India in the below link.

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