Mumbai John Doe was a young man who was found murdered in south Mumbai, India, on 13 January 2007. He is speculated to have been murdered by an alleged serial killer.
Case[]
The victim was discovered in the morning by policemen in a secluded spot between Churchgate and Grant Road. A 10-kilogram stone was used to crush the victim's head. Police believed the killer brought the stone in a gunny bag found at the scene. They don't believe the bag belonged to the victim as he was believed to be a ragpicker and the bag was cleaned; a bag used for collecting scrap and garbage would have been dirty.
Food packets and some leftover chicken curry were found at the crime scene, which suggested the victim was offered food before being killed. At the time, police were awaiting the post-mortem report if the victim was sexually assaulted by the killer, although it's unknown if the results were publicly released.
At least one Indian news source considered the victim as an eighth victim of an alleged serial killer. Between October 2006 and January 2007, seven men, presumed to be homeless vagrants, were found stabbed or beaten to death in southern Mumbai at narrow lanes or under overpasses near or between the Churchgate and Marine Lines stations. Many of the victims were naked from the waist down, indicating that they had been sexually assaulted. A beer can was found alongside at least two of the victims, which suggested the killer shared a drink with the victims before killing them. Based on this fact, the local press dubbed the serial killer "The Beer Man."
On 22 January 2007, a 35-year-old man named Ravindra Kantrole was arrested and charged with three of the murders. Kantrole, a former gang member who had recently converted to Islam and began raising a family in south Mumbai, denied any involvement. While being interrogated, he was subjected to a narco-analysis test and supposedly confessed to killing the victims and several additional, undiscovered victims. Several other witnesses also claimed to have witnessed him in the areas where the murders took place, although at least one testimony was questionable as the witness briefly saw him but only recognized his face months later.
In July 2008, Kantrole was acquitted of two of the murders due to a lack of evidence and unreliable witness testimony, but was convicted on the third charge in January 2009 and sentenced to life imprisonment. In September 2009, the Bombay High Court overruled the lower court, and Kantrole was subsequently released.