'Cannibal' Raja Kolander gets life imprisonment in double murder case
Photo credit: AI
LUCKNOW: A court in Lucknow has sentenced
Raja Kolander
, a man long associated with some of India's most chilling criminal cases and his accomplice Bachhraj Kol to life imprisonment for the abduction and murder of two men over two decades ago.
The court found the duo guilty under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code, including kidnapping, dacoity with murder, and destruction of evidence. Each has also been fined Rs 1 lakh, part of which will be paid as compensation to the victims' families.
The case dates back to January 2000, when 22-year-old Manoj Kumar Singh and his driver Ravi Srivastava disappeared while travelling from Lucknow to Rewa in Madhya Pradesh.
Their mutilated bodies were later found in a forest in Allahabad (now Prayagraj).
According to the prosecution, the victims had picked up several passengers — including a woman — from Lucknow's Charbagh railway station before they vanished. Witness testimony placed Kolander and his wife among the group in the vehicle. Police later recovered a coat believed to belong to Manoj from Kolander's home, matching a tailor's label in Rae Bareli.
Government counsel MK Singh told the court that if the convicts fail to pay the fine, additional imprisonment would be imposed. The court ordered that 40% of each fine be transferred to the victims' families through the District Magistrate of Lucknow.
A notorious history
Kolander, whose real name is Ram Niranjan Kol, has long been a figure of macabre fascination in Indian criminal history. A former ordnance factory worker from eastern Uttar Pradesh and a member of the Kol tribal community, Kolander gained infamy for his alleged involvement in multiple murders and disturbing rituals.
In 2012, he was convicted alongside his brother-in-law for the murder of journalist Dhirendra Singh. The victim was shot, mutilated, and buried — a case that shocked the nation after police recovered 14 human skulls from Kolander's farmhouse. While allegations of cannibalism circulated widely, they were never formally proven in court.
Psychiatrists who assessed Kolander described him as psychopathic, though courts ruled him mentally fit to stand trial. He reportedly saw himself as a self-styled monarch, naming his wife Phoolan Devi and his sons Adalat (court) and Zamanat (bail).
Kolander's conviction in the 2000 case marks another chapter in one of India's darkest and most disturbing criminal sagas.
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