Fascinating And Disturbing Facts About Javed Iqbal, The Pakistani Serial Killer Who Murdered 100 Boys

In less than a year, Javed Iqbal, a middle-aged Pakistani man, allegedly raped and killed 100 young boys and teenagers, taking advantage of apathetic attitudes towards poor children to commit his disturbing crimes. Many of Iqbal's victims weren't reported missing to police until months after they had disappeared, making it possible for him to take 100 lives before law enforcement even learned the young boys had vanished. 

When this Pakistani serial killer's crimes came to light, parents of missing children desperately tried to learn if their sons had died at the hands of Iqbal, forcing mothers and fathers to sort through evidence taken from the murderer's home.

After he turned himself in and was convicted of the killings, Iqbal was given a severe sentence designed to subject him to the same merciless acts he'd visited on 100 children. Even after he died in prison, Iqbal is remembered as one of the worst serial killers who murdered boys, making him a dark figure in Pakistan's history.

After officials found photographs of his victims and barrels containing the bodies three young boys in his home, Pakistani police launched a massive manhunt that lasted for one month until Iqbal turned himself in on December 30, 1999. However, instead of going to a local police station, Iqbal went to the Daily Jang, an Urdu newspaper, to surrender. According to the staff at the newspaper, Iqbal didn’t express any remorse for his crimes, instead stating, “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."

He also gave Daily Jang staff a 32-page journal that contained details about the sexual assaults and murders, as well as pictures he had taken of the boys he’d sodomized and killed. The staff at the newspaper contacted the police, and Iqbal was promptly arrested.

When police searched Iqbal’s home, they discovered two large drums containing acid and the dissolving remains of three children. They also found note cards that provided information about his victims, including their names, ages, physical descriptions, and the dates they were killed, covering the walls of his home.

The authorities also recovered photographs Iqbal had taken of his victims and bags of children’s clothing and shoes, which provided proof that Iqbal had been telling the truth when he claimed responsibility for the murders of 100 boys. Armed with evidence to support his confession, the police launched a manhunt to track down the admitted serial killer before he could viciously kill another child.

In November 1999, Javed Iqbal decided to confess to the murders by sending a letter to the police. In the letter, which was received by law enforcement in early December 1999, Iqbal admitted to killing 100 “beggar children” by strangling them to death; he also included details about dismembering his victims and dissolving their remains in barrels of acid.

Iqbal sent a similar letter to the Daily Jang, his local newspaper, and although the correspondence was unsigned, it included directions to his home. Consequently, reporters arrived at Iqbal’s home before the police, although newspaper staff contacted law enforcement after they made a number of shocking discoveries in the confessed killer’s rented house.

In September 1998, Iqbal was hospitalized for 22 days after he and one of his employees, Arbab, were beaten and robbed by another man who worked for him. However, after Iqbal was released from the hospital, he was immediately arrested and charged with sodomy: while he had been lying in the hospital unconscious, the result of a severe head injury suffered during the attack, Arbab’s family had filed a complaint with the police, alleging Iqbal had sodomized Arbab.

Iqbal was granted bail, but when he tried to return to his lavish home, he discovered his house, as well as his business and vehicles, had been sold to pay for his medical care. Consequently, Iqbal was broke and homeless, so he rented a house in a Lahore slum, the place where he would eventually take the lives of 100 children.

In addition to finding victims through the various businesses he created, Javed Iqbal also met boys through pen pal programs. Reportedly, Iqbal would find pen pals through magazines for children and begin correspondences with young boys.

Eventually, he would convince his pen pals to send him pictures of themselves, and he would focus his attention on the children he found most attractive. Iqbal groomed these chosen boys by sending them gifts, until he was able to arrange in-person meetings where he sexually assaulted and sodomized his pen pals.

Using the considerable inheritance he received after his father’s death, Iqbal opened a number of different businesses designed to help him meet and sexually assault young boys and teenagers. One of these businesses was a video store, where Iqbal reportedly left money on the floor of the shop, waiting to see which of his young customers would pick up the cash. Then, Iqbal would accuse the boy of trying to steal from him, and he would take the "thief" into another room, presumably for some sort of punishment, and sodomize the child.

After the video game shop closed, Iqbal opened more businesses, including an aquarium, a gym, a general store, and even a school, but none of these entrepreneurial endeavors lasted for very long because parents were afraid to let their children go to places run by Iqbal.

One of the main reasons Javed Iqbal was able to get away with raping and sexually assaulting children over the course of several years was because his father was an incredibly wealthy stock market trader who had amassed a large fortune. Iqbal’s father Mohammed bought his son a villa to live in, and he also helped his son start a steel recasting business in 1978 that allowed Iqbal to enjoy a lavish lifestyle.

After Mohammed passed away in 1993, Iqbal, who was in his late 30s at the time, inherited more than 3 million rupees from his father’s estate, making him even richer. Iqbal used this windfall to build a massive home, complete with a swimming pool, as well as to purchase four different vehicles.

Prior to the start of his killing spree, multiple criminal complaints were filed against Iqbal, accusing him of sexually assaulting and sodomizing children. However, Iqbal’s father was a respected and powerful businessman in Lahore, and he used his influence to keep his son out of jail.

Consequently, prior to his murder spree in 1999, Iqbal was never convicted of sodomy, leaving him free to eventually take the lives of 100 children. However, Iqbal later said that when he was arrested and questioned by police, he was beaten and brutalized, and he claimed the abuse he suffered at the hands of law enforcement motivated him to kill young boys and teenagers.

Over the course of just eight months, businessman Javed Iqbal reportedly murdered 100 boys, ranging in age from 6 to 16, while he was living in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. From May to December 1999, Iqbal (who was 43 years old at the time) drugged, sodomized, and sexually assaulted the boys, many of whom were poor children who lived on the streets of Pakistan, before strangling them to death with a chain.

After killing the boys, Iqbal disremembered their bodies and placed their remains in large vats of hydrochloric acid to dissolved his victims' flesh and bones. Then, once the boys' bodies were reduced to little more than liquid, Iqbal poured the contents of the barrels into the sewer or a river near his home.

In order to find out if their missing sons had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death by Javed Iqbal, a number of parents whose children had disappeared sorted through items taken from the confessed killer’s home. Officials found five bags of children’s clothing in Iqbal’s house, as well as three bags containing a total of 85 pairs of shoes, and distraught parents sifted through these piles of clothes and footwear to see their children’s belongings were among them.

Parents of missing children also looked through the photographs Iqbal had taken of his victims to see if the confessed murdered had snapped their son’s picture prior to killing them.