Mahanand Naik was an auto-rickshaw driver from Shiroda, Goa, when Ponda police arrested him in April 2009 on a complaint of rape and blackmail. Within weeks, according to reports at the time, he had confessed to killing 16 young women over 15 years, beginning in 1994. Police registered 16 murder cases against him. The prosecutions that followed were still running in 2017, in sessions courts in Panaji and Margao, and they produced a record that does not match the scale of the confession. He was convicted of the 1995 murder of Vasanti Gaude, a verdict upheld by the High Court of Bombay at Goa and then by the Supreme Court of India. He was convicted in at least one more murder case and in the 2009 rape case. In case after case, though, the courts acquitted him, usually on the benefit of the doubt.
The Goa press called him the "dupatta killer," after the long scarf worn with a salwar kameez. The women named in the cases were, by the accounts of police and reporters, young and from poor families in and around Ponda, and the prosecution's case in each trial was much the same: that he had befriended a woman, promised to marry her, asked her to come wearing her gold, and taken her to an isolated place, where she was killed and robbed.
Little has been made public about his early life. Arab News, writing from Panaji in June 2009, described him as a 40-year-old auto-rickshaw driver and a seemingly gentle family man whose neighbors were shocked that he had gone undetected for so long. He had been married for three years and had a daughter who was 18 months old. His wife told the paper that he was kind and helpful at home, that he "can't kill an ant," and that if he was guilty he should be executed. A 2025 report in The Goan describes him as a native of Shiroda.
The case that became his one final murder conviction was also the one in which police had him in their hands early. Vasanti Gaude was killed on September 11, 1995, at Bethora village in Ponda, according to the Herald's report of the Supreme Court ruling in her case. The Herald described her as believed to have been his first victim.
Arab News reported in 2009 that he had been arrested in 1995 over one woman's disappearance and released without charge, which raised questions in Goa about how he had escaped notice for so long afterward. The writer Mukesh Kumar, of Prudent Media, whose book on the case was released in Panaji in October 2025, has said that Naik was held in 1995 on suspicion of kidnapping Vasanti Gaude and was let go after a protest by drivers, which Kumar called a serious failure. By Kumar's account, Naik is alleged to have killed thirteen more women before he was arrested again in 2009. The cases charged against him include one from 1994: police later charge-sheeted him in the murder of Darshana Naik, of Tarvale-Shiroda, at Bambolim in September 1994, a death the Agassaim police had first registered as unnatural.
Ponda police arrested him in 2009 in connection with a rape case, The Goan reported in 2023, and he then confessed to a series of crimes, after which police registered 16 cases against him. The Herald reported that the complaint, made by a young woman, was one of rape. Arab News put the arrest in April 2009, on suspicion of rape and blackmail, and said the confessions came after weeks of questioning. By mid-June he had not been charged with any killing. He was cooperating with detectives from his cell, the paper reported, and had led them to the remains of some of the women, which were sent for forensic testing.
The officer most closely associated with the investigation was the Ponda police inspector C. L. Patil (Chetan Patil in one Goan report). The Goan wrote in 2023 that he had played a significant part in the investigation and in the court cases that followed, and Kumar's 2025 book praises his work as the "gold standard" of police work.
The confessions became a political matter in Goa at once. "This is the only case in Goa's history wherein someone has gone on the rampage and killed young women," the chief minister, Digambar Kamat, told Arab News. "I was shocked. This is something unimaginable." The paper reported that the women were poor, aged 19 to 33, and from in and around Ponda, and that, by the police account, he had befriended them, promised marriage and asked them to wear their best jewelry to meet him.
The cases were spread over several police jurisdictions. Ponda police handled the largest share, and cases were also registered by the Agassaim, Maina Curtorim and Quepem police. Ponda police filed an 820-page charge sheet before the Ponda Judicial Magistrate First Class in the murder of Yogita Naik of Nagzar, Ponda, with the statements of 84 witnesses, and charge-sheeted him in the rape case before the same court. A third Ponda charge sheet, about 350 pages long with statements from about 50 witnesses, covered the 1994 Bambolim case, investigated by Police Sub-Inspector Dipak Pednekar; it also named a Ponda goldsmith, U. R., who was accused of receiving the stolen gold. Maina Curtorim police took him into custody in the Deepali Jotkar case, and a court in Margao later remanded him to 14 days of judicial custody, with Quepem police expected to seek his custody in a further case.
In each murder case the charges were the same group of offenses under the Indian Penal Code: kidnapping or abduction, murder, robbery and causing the disappearance of evidence. The goldsmith stood trial with him in at least two cases on a charge of dishonestly receiving stolen property.
The Additional Sessions Court convicted him of the murder of Vasanti Gaude in July 2011 and sentenced him to life imprisonment, with a fine of Rs 1.3 lakh to be paid to her family. The High Court of Bombay at Goa dismissed his appeal. He then took the case to the Supreme Court of India, where a bench of Justices A. K. Goel and U. U. Lalit dismissed the appeal and upheld the conviction, the Herald reported. The state was represented by Additional Solicitor General Atmaram Nadkarni, and the advocates Salvador Rebello and Mayuri Goel also appeared in the matter. The Herald noted that he had been acquitted in some of his other cases.
The Goan reported in June 2023 that he was serving life imprisonment in three murder cases, which it listed as those of Vasanti Gaude, killed in 1995; Yogita Naik, killed in 2009; and Sushila Fatarpekar, killed in 2007. A second Goan report the same month said he had been found guilty in three murder cases. Later reporting gives a lower figure. A Goan report on the October 2025 book launch said he had been linked to sixteen alleged victims but convicted in only two cases, one of them the Gaude case.
He was also convicted in the 2009 rape case and sentenced to seven years, the Herald reported. The woman whose complaint led to his arrest was the key witness at that trial. The Herald later reported that her testimony had secured his first conviction.
The other cases went largely the other way. A Herald report from Panaji described the Sessions Court there acquitting him in seven murder cases, each time on the benefit of the doubt, and quoted Goa's home minister, Ravi Naik, as saying the Home Ministry would challenge the acquittals in the higher courts. "In all the cases, courts have given benefit of doubt for the accused," the minister said. The Directorate of Prosecution was asked to examine each judgment, and the government said it would wait for all the cases to finish before deciding what to do. That report described him as charged with killing 18 women.
The reported counts changed as the cases came to an end. When the North Goa District and Sessions Court acquitted him in the case of Shakuntala Kavthankar, the Herald called it his fourth acquittal in five cases, after acquittals in the cases of Bhagu Upaskar, Surat Gaonkar and Nirmala Amonkar. IANS, in a report printed by Gulf News, said he had been acquitted in six cases. In May 2017 The Goan headlined its report of another verdict as his ninth acquittal in 16 murder cases. The Goan's June 2023 furlough report said he had been acquitted in four cases, a figure that does not match the earlier reports.
Shakuntala Kavthankar was 35 and lived in Mayem village, where she sold clothes from house to house and lived with her elderly mother, five sisters and a brother. She went missing on December 30, 2005. The prosecution alleged that Naik had lured her with a proposal of marriage and that he had confessed and sold her ornaments. Judge Nutan Sardessai acquitted him of kidnapping, robbery, murder and destroying evidence because, the Herald reported, the prosecution had not produced concrete evidence of guilt.
Dipali Jotkar was 22 and lived in Davorlim, near Margao. She disappeared in November 2008. The prosecution said he had lured her away on the pretext of marriage and killed and robbed her. The South Goa Principal Sessions Judge, Nutan Sardesai, heard 19 witnesses, among them the investigating officer, Police Inspector Shiddant Shirodkar, and the young woman's mother. The defense argued that the prosecution had not proved that the remains were hers, despite a DNA test that the prosecution said matched it to her parents. Public Prosecutor T. S. Sardinha appeared for the state, the advocate J. Antao for Naik and the advocate Prasad Naik for the goldsmith. The court acquitted Naik and the goldsmith on the benefit of the doubt. Naik maintained that he had been falsely implicated in the murder cases. Reports differ on the year: the Herald gave November 2008 for her disappearance, while The Goan's 2023 list gives 2006.
Nayan Omu Gaonkar's case reached its end in May 2017. She died in 2008 near Margao, and her sister had reported her missing on April 7, 2008. Naik had been arrested in that case on August 15, 2009. He was charged with kidnapping, murder, robbery and destroying evidence, and the goldsmith with receiving stolen property. The police had listed 52 witnesses; the prosecution examined 19 and the defense two. The Sessions Court in Panaji acquitted both men. It found the chain of circumstances incomplete, described the investigation as defective and false, held that Naik had been falsely implicated, and said the prosecution had not proved how 98 grams of gold ornaments changed hands or that they had been hers.
The Nirmala Amonkar acquittal led to a different kind of inquiry. The Herald reported that a charge sheet in disciplinary proceedings against a sessions judge accused him of acquitting Naik in that case "for consideration other than judicial," in haste and without examining necessary witnesses, and that the confession and the record of recoveries had been left out of consideration. The outcome of those proceedings was not reported.
In June 2023 The Goan printed a list of the cases against him by name and year. Besides the three in which it reported convictions, it named Gulabi Gaonkar and Darshan Naik (1994), Vanita Gawde (1995), Sunita Gaonkar (2003), Bhagi Satarkar (2004), Anjani Gaonkar (2005), Surat Gaonkar and Deepali Jotkar (2006), Kesar Naik and Bhagu Upaskar (2007), and Nayana Gaonkar and Nirmala Amonkar (2008). The list repeats Sushila Fatarpekar's name in two spellings, and it does not include Shakuntala Kavthankar, whose case was tried. The killings in the cases that ended in acquittal, and in those whose outcome was not reported, remain allegations against him.
The woman whose complaint had led to his arrest continued to hear from him after he was jailed. In a complaint filed with Ponda police, the women's rights group Bailancho Ekvott said he had harassed her by phone and text message from Aguada Central Jail, alternating threats with declarations of love while the rape trial neared its end. "This amount to harassment of the victim, that is why we filed the complaint," the group's convener, Auda Viegas, told IANS. Viegas said Naik, though married, had told the woman he would marry her once he was out of prison. The jail superintendent, Gopal Parsenkar, said the authorities were looking into it. The police did not recover the phone or the SIM card, the Herald reported, but mobile tower data showed the calls had come from the jail.
About four months later, the Herald reported, she received an anonymous letter in Marathi, posted at Ponda under a false sender's name, professing love and saying the writer would marry her after his release and forgave her complaints to the police. Viegas called for a thorough inquiry, and the Ponda inspector, C. L. Patil, said the letter would be checked and probably sent for handwriting analysis outside Goa. Who wrote it has not been reported.
Activists had opposed his earlier applications for furlough, and those applications were rejected, The Goan reported. In June 2023 the Prisons Department granted him 21 days, his first release in 14 years of imprisonment. He was to return on July 5. The Goan reported that he was let out of Colvale Central Jail at about 6 a.m. on June 15, although prisoners are not supposed to be released on furlough or parole before 10 a.m., and that officials declined to explain the timing. The paper said he had been a peaceful prisoner who worked as an electrician and stayed out of jail factions.
The woman who had testified against him asked the police to protect her and her family until he was back in jail. He returned to custody as required, The Goan reported in 2024.
In 2024 he applied for premature release. On October 4, 2024, the Sentence Review Board refused, finding that he had served 13 years and 10 days of actual imprisonment, short of the 14 years required under the Code of Criminal Procedure. A Sessions Court had also ruled that he was not entitled to set off his time in custody before trial against his sentence, because of his conviction in the 2009 rape case. In November 2024 he challenged both decisions in the High Court of Bombay at Goa, which issued notice to the state government.
On the set-off question, a bench of Justices M. S. Karnik and Nivedita Mehta ruled in his favor in December 2024. His lawyer, Dolorosa Tulkar, argued that denying set-off ran against Section 428 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The court relied on that section and on the Supreme Court's decision in Bhagirath v. Delhi Administration, set aside the trial court's observations that he was not entitled to any set-off, and directed the Sentence Review Board to reconsider his application under the Goa Prison Rules, 2021, read with Section 433A of the Code, counting the set-off due to him in the Sessions Case. The board's decision on the reconsidered application was not reported.
The case passed into Goa's popular culture. Tony Dias staged a tiatr, the Konkani musical theater of Goa, titled Mahanand Monis vo Soitan? In October 2023 the Gomantak Times reviewed Franky Gonsalves's Mahanand Devmonis?, a production described as based on a real story, in which Gonsalves directed and played the title role; the reviewer treated it as a possible sequel to Dias's play. In October 2025 Mukesh Kumar's book Goa Ka Dupatta Killer, an account of the investigation into the sixteen murders and the court cases that followed, was released in Panaji.
September 1994: Darshana Naik of Tarvale-Shiroda is killed at Bambolim; Agassaim police register an unnatural death. He was later charge-sheeted in the case.
September 11, 1995: Vasanti Gaude is killed at Bethora, Ponda taluka.
1995: Naik is detained over a woman's disappearance and released without charge.
December 30, 2005: Shakuntala Kavthankar of Mayem goes missing. He was later tried and acquitted in her case.
2008: Nayan Omu Gaonkar dies near Margao. He was later tried and acquitted in her case.
November 2008: Dipali Jotkar of Davorlim disappears. He was later tried and acquitted in her case.
April 2009: Ponda police arrest him on a rape and blackmail complaint; he is reported to have confessed to killing 16 women since 1994.
June 2009: Chief Minister Digambar Kamat calls the case unique in Goa's history; Naik has not yet been charged with any killing.
2009 onward: Police file charge sheets in a series of murder cases and in the rape case; the cases are tried in Panaji and Margao.
July 2011: The Additional Sessions Court convicts him of the murder of Vasanti Gaude and sentences him to life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1.3 lakh.
Date not reported: He is sentenced to seven years in the rape case. While that trial is nearing its end, the survivor complains of calls and messages from him in Aguada Central Jail.
May 5, 2017: The Sessions Court in Panaji acquits him in the Nayan Omu Gaonkar case, reported as his ninth acquittal in 16 murder cases.
Date not reported: The Supreme Court of India dismisses his appeal in the Gaude case.
June 15, 2023: He leaves Colvale Central Jail on a 21-day furlough, his first release in 14 years; he returns as required.
October 2023: The Gomantak Times reviews the tiatr Mahanand Devmonis?
October 4, 2024: The Sentence Review Board refuses premature release.
November 2024: He challenges the refusal and the denial of set-off in the High Court of Bombay at Goa.
December 2024: The High Court sets aside the trial court's refusal of set-off and directs the board to reconsider his application.
October 2, 2025: Mukesh Kumar's book Goa Ka Dupatta Killer is released in Panaji.