Javed Iqbal

Javed Iqbal Mughal (1961 – 8 October 2001) was a Pakistani serial killer and child molester who confessed to the sexual abuse and murder of 100 young boys, ranging in age from 6 to 16. His victims were strangled, dismembered, and then dissolved in acid to destroy any evidence.

Early life Iqbal was the sixth of eight children of his businessman father. He grew up in Lahore, Pakistan. In 1978, while still a student, he started a steel recasting business. Iqbal lived, along with boys, in a villa that his father had purchased for him in the Alter area of the city.

In his letter, Iqbal stated that, with his crimes completed, he now planned to drown himself in the Ravi River; however, after unsuccessfully dragging said river with nets, police launched the largest manhunt in Pakistani history. Four accomplices, teenage boys who had shared Iqbal's three-bedroom flat, were arrested in Sohawa. Within days, one of them died in police custody, a post-mortem suggesting that force had been used against him; the police said he had jumped of his own accord from a window.

Motive Iqbal claimed that the motive for committing the murders was his anger over a perceived injustice at the hands of Lahore police: they had arrested him on charges relating to an act of sodomy against a young runaway boy in the 1990s. The victim of this sexual assault had severely bludgeoned Iqbal—predominantly about the head—rendering him unconscious. Though no charges were brought in relation to this offence, Iqbal's mother had "been forced to watch [his] decline" before suffering a fatal heart attack. According to Iqbal's confession, his mother's death after watching his social, economic and symbolic status deteriorate following his attack and arrest had "broken a hell" over him; he therefore resolved to make 100 mothers "suffer and cry" for their sons as his late mother had been forced to for him.

Trial and sentencing It was a month before Iqbal turned himself in at the offices of the Daily Jang on 30 December 1999. He was subsequently arrested. He stated that he had surrendered to the newspaper because he feared for his life and was concerned that the police would kill him.

Death On 9 October 2001, Iqbal and an accomplice, Sajid Ahmed, were found dead in their respective cells at the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore. The pair were officially ruled to have hanged themselves with their own bedsheets. Autopsies revealed that they had been beaten prior to death. Iqbal's body went unclaimed.

After public backlash to the banning and the support of several actors for the film, it was finally released on 2 June 2023.