What are the famous crime cases in India?

Let’s have a look at some of the most sensational murder cases of India:

1. Arushi Murder Mystery

Arushi Talwar and Hemraj Banjade are two names that shook India on 16th May, 2008. The then 14-year-old Arushi was murdered along with 45-year-old Hemraj and a lot of names appeared on the accused list. The case aroused a lot of public interest and received incredible amounts of media coverage.

For the longest time, the nation kept on conjecturing who the murderer was: was it her father or her mother? Could it be the other two servants? We don’t know. What we now know is that the parents have been acquitted and as of now, no one really killed Arushi.

2. Pradyumn Thakur, Ryan International School

Back in September, a Class II student was found dead in the washroom of Gurgaon’s Ryan International School. The innocent kid, who apparently caused no harm to anyone was initially thought to have been killed over a sexual-assault situation, following which a bus conductor was arrested. However, just recently, a report has come out that claims a Class XI student killed him to postpone the exams. As the picture gets murkier, many are questioning how the bus conductor came into the picture in the first place?

3. Jessica Lal

Anyone who grew up or lived in Delhi in the 90s remembers the Jessica Lal case. Back in 1999, the headlines on most newspaper read ‘no one killed Jessica’. Eyewitnesses had amnesia and very few came forward to give an account of how the aspiring model was shot dead. Finally, it emerged that businessman Manu Sharma had shot Jessica after she refused to serve him liquor.

4. Sheena Bora

The gory death of Sheena Bora shocked the nation. Even more shocking was the arrest of her mother Indrani Mukerjea for deliberately plotting her murder. Mukerjea had never admitted to having two children and even claimed Sheena was her sister. The murder brought the spotlight onto the murky financial dealings of Indrani and her husband Peter Mukerjea.

5. Amar Singh Chamkila

A popular Punjabi singer, songwriter, musician, and composer, Chamkila was killed on 8th March 1988 along with his wife and two members of the band, allegedly by a gang of unknown youths. Despite being killed in broad daylight and in front of many people, no one was arrested.

A lot of his associates complained that Chamkila was receiving because of his work, but where exactly those threats came from is still a mystery to many. Most of his compositions were on extra-marital affairs, coming of age, drinking and drug use.

6. Sunanda Pushkar

A renowned businesswoman and the wife of a former Indian diplomat and politician Shashi Tharoor, Pushkar was killed in a hotel room in Delhi's Leela Palace. Reports suggest that her husband Shashi discovered her body and just assumed that she was asleep. It was only when Pushkar did not wake up that he informed the police of the death.

She allegedly died a day after she accused Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar of stalking her husband on Twitter. When Pushkar’s body was sent for post-mortem, the conclusion was that she had committed suicide. However, a report from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences doctors claimed injury marks, followed by the death of drug overdose.

7. Chacko

Chacko’s fault was that he resembled a man named Sukumara Kurup. The latter killed him in order to claim an insurance amount of Rs 8,00,000. As per reports, Chacko was strangled and his body was burnt inside Sukumara Kurup’s car.

Sukumara, who is now one of the most wanted criminals in Kerala is said to have fled abroad and his whereabouts are still unknown. This murder mystery is officially one of Kerala’s oldest unsolved cases.

8. Adnan Patarwala

Son of a businessperson from Mumbai, Adnan was killed on 18 August 2007. From what we know, he was initially kidnapped for Rs 2 crore ransom but was murdered the next day when the information became public. Five people were accused of murdering him, but on 30 Jan 2012, four out of five people were acquitted.

9. Neeraj Grover murder

This case received a lot of attention because of how gruesome it was. Neeraj Grover’s body was chopped into pieces and stuffed in three garbage bags and set ablaze in the forest.

One of his friends, Maria Susairaj, who even filed a complaint with the police that he went missing was later found to be involved in the killing. It was then discovered that Maria’s boyfriend killed Neeraj in a fit of rage, suspecting that his wife was having an affair. If you want to have a hang of the movie, you might want to check Not a Love Story – an adaptation that closely reflects what really happened then.

10. Pramod Mahajan

We all know Mahajan from his flamboyant life and his son who lately became part of several TV shows, but have we made our peace with his murder mystery? The Bharatiya Janata Party politician was killed in broad daylight inside his house. Pramod was shot dead by his younger brother, Pravin on April 2006, who immediately walked to the nearest police station and confessed. I am Pravin… I shot Pramod.” he said. His brother’s open declaration on the murder surprised a lot of people. Pravin was given life imprisonment and died in in March 2010 of a suspected brain haemorrhage.

11. Sharath

In what looks like a kidnapping case gone wrong, a 19-year-old son of an Income Tax officer in Bangalore was murdered. His body was found near Ramohalli lake on the outskirts of the city with his hands were tied together. As it turns out, the kidnappers strangled him to death and dumped his body the same day he was kidnapped.

But the real twist in the story came when the police found out that kidnappers were his friends. A really close friend of the victim, Vishal was the mastermind behind the murder and abduction. 19-year-old Sharath was an engineering student and was killed by his friends because they wanted to clear off a loan.

12.The Rizwanur Rehman murder

Rizwanur Rehman was found dead near railway tracks on September 21, 2007, weeks after he got married to Priyanka, daughter of industrialist Ashok Todi who heads the Lux Hosiery Group.

Rizwan and Priyanka had not informed their families, as they expected fierce opposition, particularly from Priyanka's family. On a friend's advice, the couple wrote to commissioner of police, DC (south) and Karaya police station informing them about the marriage and requesting police protection. Then, Priyanka informed her father Ashok Todi over telephone about her marriage with Rizwan. Her family, especially her father, was extremely disappointed.

Ashok Todi tried to persuade the cops and asked them to separate the couple. Rizwanur was forced to send his wife Priyanka to her father's home and later wasn't allowed to talk to her. On September 21, 2007, his body was recovered from railway track in Kolkata. The incident was brushed aside as a case of suicide.

But Todi, his relatives and some police officers were charged with abetment to suicide. On October 13 2008, the Supreme Court of India stopped all proceedings in the case till the Calcutta high court decided Ashok Todi's petition challenging CBI's chargesheet against him.