"I need you to help me kill these people!" Chandrakant Jha the vegetable seller told Jadhav. 

What Jadhav saw made his blood run cold. There were three men tied up and gagged, seated on the floor. Their eyes were full of fear. As soon as they heard the word "kill" they started whining and pleading. Chandrakant Jha just laughed sensing their fear.

Jadhav asked, "Who are these people?"

"They are from my village. They have been saying nasty things about me like I am a killer. So I wanted to show them who I really am!"
saying this, Jha took out a point-and-shoot camera and clicked a few photos of the tied-up men. 

An idea struck Jadhav, "Why don’t we at least feed them a proper meal before we kill them? They look hungry, and so am I."

Jha liked the idea, "I will go out and get some food. You sit and watch these three."

Jadhav freed the men as soon as Jha stepped out of his one-room home. They fled for their lives and took Jha's camera. Even now, they fear that they might get killed by him if he gets out of jail.

In August 2023, The High Court granted a 90-day parole to serial killer Chandrakant Jha, who is serving a life term after being convicted in three murder cases.

Story of Chandrakant Jha: The Butcher of Delhi

Jha was born in 1967 in Ghosai, Madhepura in Bihar, to Radhekant Jha (who worked in the Irrigation Dept.) and Champadevi (a school teacher). Five of his siblings did pretty well for themselves, with two working with the CRPF and Bihar State Police. 

His family was a well-to-do one. His mother was very strict and was aggressive. And being an employed woman, she could not spend much time at home. As a result, Jha was devoid of love and a familial upbringing. Jha was not interested in studies and dropped out of school after class 8 and left for Delhi to find a job in 1986. He started working as a vegetable vendor in Azadpur Mandi in Delhi. 

Two incidents changed his life forever. While in Delhi, he felt like an outsider as the others often taunted and attacked him for being from Bihar. Secondly, a supervisor of the hawkers named Pandit used to collect money forcibly from the hawkers on behalf of the police. Jha refused to give in to his demand. They got into a fight, and Jha's vegetable-cutting knife slashed Pandit's hand. Pandit immediately ran to the police and lodged a false case against Jha, who was arrested and spent the next three years in jail. While in prison, he was harassed by an officer named Balbir Singh, who used to torture him, strip Jha naked in front of the other prisoners, and beat him up! Jha started believing that violence was the only way he could get back at these people and conquer injustice. 

Jha was a different man when he got out. On the one hand, he was a kind man who looked out for immigrants, but he also had a violent tendency that had become engraved in his soul. He slipped into a life of domestic and married bliss and fathered five children. But his wife and children did not live with him, as Jha kept them separate in the fear that police would harass them too.

Because he had been insulted by others, Jha started helping immigrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who had come to Delhi in pursuit of a better future. He offered them food and shelter and pampered them like they were his own children. Jha would help them obtain jobs through references and connections. But he was a strange man who hated people who lied or cheated him. And often little things would trigger him, and he would lose himself in his rage, leading to the killing spree. 

His first victim was Mangal alias Pandit, the man who had tormented him. Jha was arrested and remained in jail till 2002 when he was let off for the lack of evidence. He gave up selling vegetables and started selling plastic goods. He also learned Karate so that he would be able to defend himself from future attacks. 

For the next five years, everything seemed normal. But in June 2003, the demon raised his head. Shekhar was an associate of his, who used to stay with him. One day, Jha confronted Shekhar and accused him of his drinking habits and lying to him about being a teetotaler. Shekhar was surprised that such a small matter was being made into an issue. 

"I am going to punish you for your drinking habit and for lying to me," Jha joked as he held Shekhar’s hands in his. 

Thinking it was all a joke, Shekhar played along, "Okay, you can punish me in any way you want."

Jha made Shekhar sit on a chair and tied his hands down to the armrests of the chair. Till this point, Shekhar was playing along. But then Jha’s mind snapped, and he showed his true self. He pounced on Shekhar and started strangling him using a nunchaku. Shekhar’s eyes popped out in shock as he struggled to breathe. After killing Shekhar, Jha admired his work of art and laughed. He took out his point-and-shoot camera and clicked a photo. He then proceeded to throw the body into the Mukhmailpur sewage drain.

A few months later, he took Umesh under his wing and employed him. But in November 2003, Jha was again triggered when he suspected Umesh was lying to him! The aggressive and demonic Jha emerged, and he killed Umesh, who became Victim No. 3. This time, Jha went one step beyond and dismembered Umesh’s body. He wrapped the body in a plastic sack and dumped it in front of Tihar Jail’s Gate no.1. He also left a handwritten note saying he would leave similar ‘gifts’ for the Delhi Police again! He went on to say that he was not afraid of Delhi Police and warned that if they were unable to catch him then he would continue to kill people. He signed off the letter saying that he was their ‘Baap+Jijaji’ (Father and Uncle) and signed off as C.C. This taunt awakened Delhi Police, who now knew that there was a dangerous criminal at large.   

Again, he was quiet for two years, according to official records. But his villagers think that Jha went on a killing spree, and bodies were never found. 

In October 2005, he killed Guddu because he did not like the latter’s extravagant lifestyle and the fact that he smoked ganja. The body was found near Sulabh Sauchalya in Mangolpuri, northwest Delhi.

In October 2006, Jha murdered Amit Mandal for being a womanizer. He cut off the head, chopped the body into pieces, and threw the torso in front of Gate No. 3 of the Tihar Jail with a letter to the Delhi Police abusing them. In the letter, he blamed the Delhi Police for giving birth to a serial killer due to their torture and Balbir Singh’s atrocities. He also used the choicest of abuses to describe them. Jha took the severed head and threw it in the Yamuna. He believed that if the head were thrown into a body of water, the soul would get moksha. Jha even made a phone call to the police to taunt them and abuse them. In the phone call, he identified himself as CC. 

His next victim was Upender in April 2007. He was allegedly having an affair with the daughter of one of his friends. After killing him, Chandrakant Jha sat on the blood-drenched floor of his room, having his dinner sitting and watching the dead body. After his dinner, he dragged the body to the bathroom where he chopped up the body into various pieces. He even cut off Upender’s genitalia to teach him a lesson. Jha dropped the body parts across Delhi, including the Tis Hazari Court Complex. 

And just a month later, in May 2007, Chandrakant Jha killed Dilip because he ate non-vegetarian food. His body was found outside Tihar Jail on May 18.

By the time Jha had dumped Upender’s body near Tihar Jail’s Gate No. 3, the police had already short-listed him as one of the four accused and even had his photograph from old police records.

“We had been closing in on him since last October 20 when Jha committed his fifth murder. Many clues led us to him,” a senior police officer recalled.

The first mistake that Jha made was to send a letter to the police after leaving Amit’s torso in front of Tihar. In the letter, Jha had taken specific names. Jha had blamed former Additional Deputy Commissioner Manish Agarwal and Head Constable Balbir Singh in the letter for forcing him to take to the killing spree.

Agarwal was the additional DCP in the North West district in 2003, while Singh was the warden of jail number 3 during this period. This was the first clue.

In the letter, Jha confessed to having committed the murder in November 2003 and dumped the body near Tihar. That was the second clue. It proved that he was already out of Tihar by November 2003. So, the police had to look for a person who was lodged in Tihar before 2003.

Jha’s letter also blamed Agarwal for trapping him in a false case. From this, the police concluded that the killer was involved in a criminal case in the North West district in 2003.

The biggest mistake he made was contacting the Hari Nagar SHO immediately after dumping the body of Amit Mandal. The police ensured that the SHO spoke with the killer as long as possible and got more clues. 

After the phone conversation with the SHO, police had more than a sketchy idea who they were looking for a suspect involved in crime in the North West district in 2003, who was externed and was, before November 2003, lodged in jail number 3 of Tihar.

After verifying the records of more than 800 suspects, the police narrowed down the list to four, including Jha.

The next step for the police was to compare the handwriting on the note found with the bodies and handwritten statements of externees.

Although the police had zeroed in on Jha as the chief suspect, what made it worse was that the police were unable to track him down, as he would keep changing his address every fortnight. But they identified his four hideouts in Yamuna Vihar, Alipur, Badola village, and Haidarpur.

“Our last clue was that he drove a scooter-fitted rickshaw,” the officer recalled. “We combed all four places and finally found him in Alipur while he was eating halwa with his children.”

At the time of Jha’s arrest, the police had claimed that Jha was a psychopath, as he “enjoyed” each of his killings. “He used to kill people after he got annoyed with the victims, who had worked with him, over trifling issues,” said joint commissioner of police Rajesh Kumar.

The court described Jha’s manner of killing as "extremely brutal, grotesque and diabolical to raise intense and extreme indignation of the community."

"Mental/physical suffering inflicted on the victim before his death is immense. There is a significant degree of planning on the part of Jha while committing the murder," it said.

The judge said Jha is a "mission-oriented and task-oriented serial killer whose only motive/mission is to expose, mock and challenge the police" and that Jha's act of threatening the police that he would send such gifts again reflects a "lack of remorse" and his intention to "repeat his criminal act".

Chandrakant Jha was found guilty on three counts of murder and received two death sentences and life imprisonment until death in February 2013. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment without remission in January 2016.

In August 2023, Chandrakant Jha was released on a 90-day parole.

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Anirban Bhattacharyya is a true crime bestselling author. He is the author of India’s Money Heist: The Chelembra Bank Robbery, The Deadly Dozen: India’s Most Notorious Serial Killers and The Hills Are Burning
You can follow him on: Instagram @author_anirban; Facebook: @booksbyAnirban; Twitter: @anirban_b; Mail: anirbanauthor@gmail.com.