Desi Killers, Desi Kidnappers, Desi Criminals - find them here. Brought to you by Aryaan Misra and Aishwarya Singh, powered by The Desi Studios. We are your one stop shop for all things Desi, and all things Crazy. Support the work we do by becoming a patron: https://www.patreon.com/thedesistudios Tooooooooo much of true crime is centered around America - New York murder this and Chicago Killer that. What about the Delhi Dons and Karachi killers and Bangladeshi Burglars?! If you are tired of the the same-old American murderer, British killer, Australian kidnapper, Canadian stalker… NO MORE! The Desi Crime Podcast brings DESI crimes. From India, Pakistan, Nepal and other brown communities, we’ll bring you cases that can only be described as Desi. Crimes that take place in the Indian subcontinent aren’t remotely similar to Western crimes— desi crimes are gory, complicated, corrupt and hardly documented. After thorough research on the most sinister cases, we’ll take you on a bumpy, jaw dropping ride around South Asia. Stay Crazy. Stay Desi.
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On October 28, 2023, the world woke up to the news that one of the most beloved sitcom actors in television history was found face-down in his hot tub. Matthew Perry. Chandler Bing. 54 years old. The initial assumption was simple: a troubled man, a long battle with addiction, a tragic but unsurprising end. But the investigation that followed pulled at a thread that unraveled something far bigger than one man's overdose. Behind that body in that hot tub was a supply chain so elaborate, so layered...
In a small village in Tamil Nadu, three people walked into a house in 2008 and were never seen again. No missing persons report was ever filed. No investigation was ever launched. For four years, the world moved on and a family ate dinner every night literally above the truth of those 3 missing people. What finally brought it to the surface wasn't a detective or a tip or a breakthrough in forensics. It was a reality TV show. A reality show where, one may afternoon, the cameras rolled, the conver...
We first covered the brutal custodial killings of Jayaraj and Bennix in 2020, and then again as an update in 2022. In light of the recent updates on the case that have shaken the country, this episode is a compilation of all Desi Crime episodes on the story, followed by a segment on what we know now as of April 2026.
February 23, 2026. Fairfax County, Virginia. It is 5 in the morning and it has been snowing. A young police officer, Nicholas Brazones, is walking toward an apartment building in the suburbs. Dispatch has told him almost nothing: domestic assault, 2 victims. He has handled these calls before. You show up, you separate the parties, you take statements, you file a report. Most of the time, the situation has already cooled by the time you arrive. Most of the time, nobody is actively dying when you ...
April 2006. Pramod Mahajan is 56 years old. He is the organizational brain of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The man who brought the BJP into the digital age. The man who brokered the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance that conquered Maharashtra. The man who organized Advani's Ram Rath Yatra. The man who, as India's Telecom Minister, helped put a mobile phone in every Indian's pocket. Corporate India courts him. Delhi's power corridors bend around him. He is being spoken about, in hotel lobbies and drawing roo...
Every year, on a Thursday in December, the best badminton players in the world, from China, Indonesia, Japan, Denmark, arrive in Lucknow to compete in a tournament. Flags go up. Stadiums fill. A name echoes across the announcer's PA system, repeated hundreds of times over several days, until it becomes just background noise to the people who have heard it their whole lives. That name is Syed Modi. What the crowds in those stadiums rarely talk about--what the gleaming trophy and the BWF World Tou...
Welcome to Chai & Chithi, a segment where we read some of the scariest, most terrifying, and most haunting stories that YOU send in to us. In this week’s episode, we’re reading: To send us your scary stories to read, write to us at staydesi [at] thedesistudios [dot] com. For extra episodes, early access, silly bloopers, subscribe at: https://www.patreon.com/thedesistudios or join our YouTube family https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbfV0YvrxWMq3h0hmo13Jg/join For fastest updates, follow our ...
West Chester, Ohio. A clean, quiet suburb where Indian families build their “American dream” one grocery run, one school pickup, one festival at a time. But on April 28th, 2019, that dream turned into a crime scene. Inside a single apartment, four adults from one Indian family were found shot dead— not together, but scattered like someone had moved through the home with purpose. A woman on the kitchen floor. An elderly aunt lying in the hallway. A mother-in-law in the living room. And the father...
On a quiet evening in September 2006, something horrifying happened in the small village of Khairlanji. By morning, four members of a single family were gone — and the village was silent. At first, the story seemed unclear, almost deliberately so. But as details slowly surfaced, the crime revealed something far darker than a simple act of violence. What happened in Khairlanji wasn’t just brutal — it exposed wounds that ran deep within Indian society, and sparked outrage that would shake an entir...
It's 10 p.m. on May 16, 2012, and Havelock Town pulses with the electric hum of Colombo's nightlife, a cold breeze from the Indian Ocean fans across Sri Lanka’s capital city. Inside El Greco nightclub, Wasim Thajudeen, 27 and built like the rugby captain he is—broad shoulders and an easy smile—holds court at a corner booth. The clock ticks 11:30 p.m. "Gotta bounce, lads," he says to his friends. Hugs ripple through the crew; a chorus of "Drive safe!" and "Text when you're wheels-down!" fades as ...
On an October night in 1974, Stanford University was quiet in the way elite campuses often are after dark—orderly, confident, almost untouchable. Students slept behind locked doors, bells stood silent, and the church at the center of campus felt like the safest place imaginable. Inside that church, a young woman sought nothing more than solitude, reflection, and rest. And by morning, she was dead. What investigators found was disturbing, ritualistic, and completely at odds with the image Stanfor...
In the mid-1980s, families across North Kerala began dying inside locked homes, attacked while asleep, with no signs of struggle and no witnesses. This episode unpacks the Ripper Chandran case — the fear that gripped entire districts, the investigative blind spots of the time, and the moment India was forced to understand serial crime for the first time. For extra episodes, early access, silly bloopers, subscribe at: https://www.patreon.com/thedesistudios or join our YouTube family https://www.y...
Welcome to Chai & Chithi, a segment where we read some of the scariest, most terrifying, and most haunting stories that YOU send in to us. In this week’s episode, we’re reading: Watch Daldal: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/Daldal/0KUJKS3SFBKRU9K87JENILIPYC To send us your scary stories to read, write to us at staydesi [at] thedesistudios [dot] com. For extra episodes, early access, silly bloopers, subscribe at: https://www.patreon.com/thedesistudios or join our YouTube family https://www....
A moonless night in the Rocky Mountains. January 6, 1982. Snow has been dumping for hours over Colorado as temperatures plummet. Far above the ski lights of Breckenridge, on a remote mountain pass, tragedy had already begun. That night, in the cozy bars of Breckenridge, as locals were huddling together to seek refuge from the storm, little did they know that two members of their community had just vanished. This is the story of that snowy night, that otherwise peaceful town, and those two victim...
Welcome to Moment of Silence x Desi Crime: The Last Sleepover. Remember those sleepovers where you stayed up way too late; swapping rumours, gossiping, and trying to spook your best friends with scary stories? This is our attempt to take you back to that feeling. Hosted by Aishwarya Singh, Aryaan Misra, Naina Bhan and Sakshi Shivdasani, this crossover slumber party takes you on a ride: Do ghosts exist? Does a bad date count as a paranormal experience? Is real life scarier or the afterlife? And w...
On the night of November 25, 1981, an Air India Boeing 707 descended toward Mahé in the Seychelles expecting a routine refuelling stop—and instead flew straight into a war zone. Below, a coup was unfolding. As tracer bullets and mortars lit up the night, Captain Umesh Chandra Saxena circled overhead with dwindling fuel, receiving only cryptic warnings from a control tower that had already been seized by the mercenaries. With minutes of fuel left and no safe alternative, he made a life-or-death d...
On a winter evening in January 2011, a university campus in British Columbia was slowly winding down. Classes were over, lights glowed softly inside lecture halls, and students moved through parking lots thinking about nothing more than getting home. In a space meant to feel ordinary, familiar, and safe, something unthinkable was about to happen—quick, targeted, and irreversible. That evening, a young woman was gone, and an entire community was left to understand how this violence arrived. This ...
Recorded live at Apple BKC, Mumbai It began as a routine evening in Surrey — the kind that never makes headlines. Manjit Panghali stepped out, expecting to return home like she always did. But she didn’t. At first, it was brushed off as a delay… a missed call… a misunderstanding. But as hours passed, the silence grew heavier. What unsettled investigators wasn’t just that she was missing — it was where the trail stopped and who noticed the absence last. This is the story of that seemingly ordinar...
This episode details the shocking case of Varun Suresh, an Indian-American engineer who, driven by a fanatical hatred for pedophiles, used a public sex offender registry to locate and brutally murder 71-year-old David Brimmer. The hosts explore Varun's meticulous planning, his CPA disguise, the violent confrontation, and his unapologetic confession where he expressed no remorse, believing he delivered divine justice. The case sparked a fierce debate on vigilante justice and public access to such sensitive information.
This episode recounts the chilling murder of Saima Khan in Luton, initially staged as a burglary but quickly exposed as a crime of passion by her younger sister, Sabah. Driven by obsessive love for Saima's husband and jealousy, Sabah meticulously planned and executed the brutal stabbing, leaving behind a digital trail of her murderous intent. The narrative delves into the hidden family dynamics, the shocking discovery of evidence, and the profound tragedy that tore a family apart.
He solved the 1993 blasts, interrogated Ajmal Kasab, and reshaped Mumbai’s police force—Rakesh Maria is one of India’s most legendary cops. Listeners know we’ve been hinting at “that one guest” for years, and we can’t believe we’re saying this: he’s finally on Desi Crime. In this interview, Maria opens up about investigations, politics, and the human cost of law enforcement. This is a rare conversation with the man behind India’s biggest cases. Buy his latest book now: https://amzn.in/d/bHtYZSi...
Sign up for our Today @ Apple session in Mumbai where you can watch a live Desi Crime Ep recording (for free), at the Apple BKC Store: https://apple.co/desi-crime-pod Welcome to Chai & Chithi, a segment where we read some of the scariest, most terrifying, and most haunting stories that YOU send in to us. In this week’s episode, we’re reading: To send us your scary stories to read, write to us at staydesi [at] thedesistudios [dot] com. For extra episodes, early access, silly bloopers, subscri...
This is the story of one baby, left broken and battered at a Delhi hospital, who went on to change India. To know more about this case, watch Delhi Crime Season 3, now on Netflix! Some stories don’t begin with a murder. They begin with a mystery — a baby found broken, bruised, and fighting for her life in one of the country’s best hospitals… and no one knowing who she belongs to. A mystery that seems like it will be simple enough to solve. Or so the city believed — until investigators uncovered ...
This episode unravels the chilling Bear Brook Murders, a complex cold case spanning decades. It follows the investigation into four unidentified victims found in barrels in New Hampshire, ultimately linking them to Terry Rasmussen, a serial killer who operated under numerous aliases. The story highlights the crucial role of advanced forensic science, including mitochondrial DNA and genetic genealogy, in unmasking Rasmussen and finally identifying his victims, changing criminal investigation forever.
Order our book, Desi Crime, available now on Amazon:https://amzn.in/d/0WyttKW Get the audiobook with our lovely voices: https://www.audible.in/pd/B0FK4L77SY?source_code=ASSORAP0511160007 In the summer of 1994, a quiet suburban street in Bellevue, Washington, became the site of something so brutal, neighbors would remember the sound of sirens long after the blood had dried. Inside a well-kept family home, three lives were taken in a single night — a crime so savage it seemed personal, yet so calc...
Order our book, Desi Crime, available now on Amazon:https://amzn.in/d/0WyttKW Get the audiobook with our lovely voices: https://www.audible.in/pd/B0FK4L77SY?source_code=ASSORAP0511160007 November 11, 2024. Kasaragod District Court, Kerala. Rain drizzles outside as an elderly couple stands in a quiet corner of the courthouse veranda. In the husband’s hands is a small cardboard box. It’s so small – barely the size of a shoebox. The wife’s fingers tremble on the lid, and when she lifts it, both beg...
Order our book, Desi Crime, available now on Amazon:https://amzn.in/d/0WyttKW Get the audiobook with our lovely voices: https://www.audible.in/pd/B0FK4L77SY?source_code=ASSORAP0511160007 On a calm September night in Perth, a city known for its stillness, something unthinkable shattered the quiet. By dawn, a woman who had spent her life fighting for justice was gone — and one unsuspecting man became the subject of everyone’s suspicion. Whispers spread from courthouse corridors to family dinner ta...
This episode dives into the brutal 2002 honor killing of Nitish Katara, a young man murdered by his girlfriend Bharti Yadav's politically powerful family due to their forbidden love. It meticulously chronicles his mother Neelam Katara's extraordinary 14-year battle for justice, facing witness intimidation, legal manipulation, and systemic corruption. Despite significant challenges, Neelam's perseverance led to the conviction of the killers and landmark changes in India's witness protection laws.
Order our book, Desi Crime, available now on Amazon: https://amzn.in/d/0WyttKW Get the audiobook with our lovely voices: https://www.audible.in/pd/B0FK4L77SY?source_code=ASSORAP0511160007 October free early access: https://music.amazon.in/podcasts/23e00040-1692-4d3e-9a87-3b169e644500/the-desi-crime-podcast Spring break in the Caribbean — warm waters, neon nights, and a kind of freedom that feels endless. For most, it’s a fleeting escape. But for one young woman, it became the last place she was ...
