Being a child, orphan or runaway, in the streets of Pakistan is hard enough. When you add to that the threat of a serial killer, your odds of survival drop dramatically. Javed Iqbal grew up relatively wealthy, but ended up finding his place in the slums, living among his intended victims.
Javed Iqbal was the sixth child, and fourth son of Mohammad Ali Mughal, a relatively wealthy stock-market trader. He attended Islamia High School and started his own business in 1978 when he was just an intermediate student at the Islamia College, Railway Road. His father purchased two villas in Shadbagh, and Javed setup a steel recasing business in one of them, where he also lived for years. When his father passed away in 1993, he inherited 3 million rupees, which he used to build a large home complete with a swimming pool, and four different vehicles.
He built several businesses, a video shop, an aquarium, a gym, a general store and even a school. He would often leave cash lying on the floor and wait for a child to pick it up so he could accuse him of stealing. Punishment was sodomy and sexual assault.
His businesses didn’t last long as parents feared what he would do to their children. He started a pen pal program to start correspondence with young boys, where he encouraged them to send him photos, and he would send them gifts. He would work to arrange meetings with those he deemed to be most attractive, and then he would attack.
In september 1998, Javed found himself the victim. He was robbed and beaten by Arbab, an employee who had accused him of sodomy. Javed received a severe head injury, leaving him unconscious and in the hospital. When he was finally released, he was immediately arrested. He was granted bail, but found that his home, his vehicles, and even his businesses had all been sold to pay for his medical care.
Javed found himself homeless and broke. He rented a house in the slums of Lahore where he began picking up young boys aged between six and sixteen , often orphans or runaways, off the streets. This time they were all drugged, sodomized, and sexually assaulted. When he was finished with them, he would strangle them to death with a chain before dismembering their bodies and dissolving their remains in vats of hydrochloric acid. Once their bodies were reduced to a liquid, he dumped them in a local river.
It wasn’t until Javed sent a letter to police, that his crimes were even noticed.
December 1999, in a letter to police, Javed confessed to the murders of 100 boys. This letter contained details about what he had done to the children, and how he had ultimately disposed of their remains. He also sent a similar letter, and his journal to the Daily Jang, his local newspaper. “I hate this world, I am not ashamed of my action and I am ready to die. I have no regrets. I killed 100 children.” Although that letter was left unsigned, he had included directions to his rented home. Newspaper staff descended on his home, getting there before even police, and made a few discoveries of their own.
The walls and floors of Javed’s house were bloodstained. He had two large drums of acid, remains still dissolving inside, and a note claiming, “the bodies in the house have deliberately not been disposed of so that authorities will find them.” There were note cards with information regarding his victims, including their name, age, physical description, and the date they were killed. These cards littered the walls of the house.
There were photographs of the victims, and bags of children’s clothing and shoes. Javed was nowhere to be found. Could it be that Javed had followed through with the last part of his letter, that he had planned to drown himself in the Ravi River?
Police dragged the river with nets, but came up empty. As the manhunt ensued, parents descended on the bags of clothing, and photos of children taken from Javed’s house, needing to know if their son had been one of the victims.
Four teenage boys had shared the house with Javed, and were arrested. Within just days, one of the boys jumped from a window, killing himself.
On December 30, 1999, Javed turned himself in at the offices of the Daily Jang. When asked why he surrendered himself to the newspaper and not the police, he claimed he feared for his life and believed the police would kill him. He withdrew his confession, and claimed in court that he was innocent, and the whole thing was nothing more than an elaborate hoax to draw attention to the plight of runaway children from poor families. He claimed all statements made to police were done so under duress. However, there were over 100 witnesses who were all happy to testify against him.
Javed Iqbal was sentenced to die by strangulation. Judge Allah Baksh told the court in Lahore, “Javed Iqbal has been found guilty of 100 murders. The sentence is that he should be strangled 100 times. His body should be cut into 100 pieces and put in acid, as he did with his victims.” He also ordered that the sentence be carried out in a large park in Lahore by the Minar-i-Pakistan, a national monument.
Javed did not live long enough for his sentence to be carried out; on the morning of October 8, 2001, Javed and his accomplice Sajid Ahmad were found dead in their cell in the Kot Lakhpat prison. They had apparently committed suicide by hanging themselves with bedsheets, though there has been speculation that they were murdered. Autopsies revealed that they had been beaten prior to death.
Javed Iqbal is considered to be the most prolific serial killer in Pakistan’s history as an independent nation.
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