8 Indian Serial Killers Who Will Give You GooseBumps

1. Nithari Killers

Surinder Koli (L) was the domestic help of Moninder Singh Pandher (R), a businessman from Noida. In 2006, they were both arrested in connection with the discovery of skulls of missing children in the Nithari village, on the outskirts of Noida. The case was a topic of discussion in every household due to the huge media furor over what was really going on. There were accusations of rape, cannibalism, pedophilia, sodomy and even organ trafficking. As of now, Surinder Koli has been found guilty of 5 homicides and is on death row, while Pandher awaits his fate with 11 other unsolved murders under the same investigation.

2. Auto Shankar

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Now this is an interesting one. In late 1988, in a period of approximately 6 months, nine girls from the Thiruvanmiyur section of Chennai went missing. What the investigators thought was that the girls had been sold into prostitution by the families, who were unable to arrange for dowry, a common thing happening at that point of time in India. However, constant denials by the families made them take a deeper look into these disappearances.

Later in December of the same year, a schoolgirl named Subalakshmi complained that an auto-rickshaw driver tried to manhandle and abduct her in front of a local wine shop. What happened next comes straight out of a scene from a movie - the cops went undercover and start working in the wine shop. It's from there that they found that there was a man named Shankar behind the crimes. Shankar would kidnap these girls, kill them, cremate them and drop their ashes in the Bay of Bengal. It was only after his arrest that he got to be known as 'Auto Shankar'.

3. Charles Sobhraj

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Born in Saigon, Vietnam, 'The Serpent', as the world knows him, is probably the most popular serial killer of India. He was very well read and extremely suave as a personality, which helped him in taking his victims (between 12-24 western tourists) into confidence before drugging and killing them. One of his first victims was Vitali Hakim, whose burnt body was found on the road right outside the Pattaya resort he was staying at. After this, Dutch students Henk Bintanja, and his fianc¨¦e Cornelia Hemker were invited to Thailand after meeting Sobhraj in Hong Kong. They, like so many others, were poisoned by Sobhraj, who then nurtured them back to health in order to gain their trust. Around the same time entered Charmayne Carrou, the girlfriend of Vitali Hakim, in the city to investigate her boyfriend's disappearance. Fearing that he will be found out, Charles along with his accomplice, Ajay Chowdhury, murdered the Dutch couple. Their bodies were found strangled and burnt on 16 December 1975. Soon after, Carrou was found drowned, wearing a similar-styled swimsuit to one of Sobhraj's earlier victims, Teresa Knowlton. Sobhraj would later get the nickname of "The Bikini Killer."

Randeep Hooda is portraying the role of Sobhraj in the upcoming Bollywood film: 'Main Aur Charles'.

4. Thug Behram

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This man is probably one of the most lethal in the history of serial killers. Between 1790 and 1840 Thug Behram a.k.a Buhram Jemedar and the 'King of the Thugs', had been involved in up to 931 murders! No, that's not a number we're cooking up. Recognized as the leader of the Thuggee cult active in Oudh in northern-central India during the late 18th and early 19th century, his modus operandi used to be strangulation with a cummerbund. The cummerbund had a large medallion sewn into it, and with practiced skill, he could cast the cummerbund so as to cause the medallion to land on the Adam's apple of his victims, adding pressure to the throat and making it easier to kill them. Scary! Behram was hung to death in 1840.

5. Cyanide Mohan

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Anand Kulal a.k.a Mohan Kumar was a primary school science teacher who, the police claim, has killed 20 women in a span of 5 years. Mohan used to look for women with middle or lower-income backgrounds in bus stops and become friendly with them. Soon after, he would propose marriage to them and then murder them. He wanted no dowry, and urged the women to elope with him to faraway towns after swearing them to secrecy (one of the main reasons why the women would agree to his proposal). After eloping, he would have sex with his victims a night before their "wedding", and give them cyanide the morning after, fleeing with their money and jewelry. Cold blooded murderer!

6. Cyanide Mallika

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No, she has nothing in common with Cyanide Mohan, except for the cyanide element of course. Cyanide Mallika a.k.a K. D. Kempamma is considered to 'India's first female serial killer'. She would choose her victims from among female devotees near temples. Posing as a deeply pious woman, well versed with all the religious rituals, she would befriend well-to-do women. Once she gained the confidence of a woman, she would call her to a temple that was far away from the would-be victim¡¯s house. She would advise the woman to be dressed in all her finery, including jewelry, to appease the gods. At the temple, Mallika would pretend to perform a prayer before telling the woman to drink holy water or eat prasad that would be laced with cyanide. Known to have killed 6 women like this, she was given a death penalty in 2010, which was later reduced to life imprisonment in 2012.

7. Stoneman Killers

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Now this one's very intriguing because it took place in two different cities. Starting in Mumbai in 1985, and lasting well over two years, a series of twelve murders were committed in the Sion and King's Circle locality of the city. The modus operandi was simple; he or she would find an unsuspecting victim sleeping alone in a desolate area. The victim's head was crushed with a single stone weighing as much as 30 kg. In most cases, the victims' identities could not be ascertained since they slept alone and did not have relatives or associates who could identify them. By the middle of 1988, the killings stopped as mysteriously as they had started. To this date the case is unsolved.

Fast forward to the summer of 1989 in Calcutta. There was an uncanny similarity in the instrument, choice of victims, execution, and the time of the attacks, suggesting the killer was someone familiar with the Bombay episodes, if not the same person. The first victim in Calcutta died from injuries to the head in June 1989. Twelve more would die in the next six months as panic gripped the city. A film was made on the happenings in Mumbai called Stoneman Murders starring Kay Kay Menon and Arbaaz Khan. Till date, the mystery is still unsolved.

8. Beer Man

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This name was given to a suspected serial killer, who operated between October 2006 and January 2007. The name 'Beer man' caught on because of the empty beer bottles which were left next to the body of the victim at the crime scene. In January 2008, a certain Ravindra Kantrole was convicted of a seventh murder. He was later acquitted because the forensic tests conducted on him were judged inadmissible. This is yet another case that remains unsolved till date.