In the glittering high-rises of Andheri and Lokhandwala, few imagined that a smooth-talking man with Bollywood dreams would turn out to be one of Mumbai’s most notorious serial killers. Yet that is exactly what unfolded when Vijay Palande’s double life was exposed in 2012 — a shocking tale of greed, murder, and betrayal that rattled Mumbai to its core.
Vijay Palande – The Criminal Mastermind
By day, Palande masqueraded as a property dealer. He even went by the alias “Karan Sood.” But behind this carefully crafted image lurked a calculating predator. He had previously been sentenced to life imprisonment for a double murder in 1998, but was out on parole.
The Ruthless Murder of Arun Kumar Tikku
The crime that exposed his dark underworld began in April 2012. Arun Kumar Tikku, father of Bollywood actor Anuj Tikku, was found brutally stabbed in his own flat in Lokhandwala. The motive? Palande wanted to grab the high-value flat — estimated at ₹50 crore — by eliminating the father and coercing the son. The way the murder was found is fascinating. A passer-by saw an elderly man being brutally beaten and quickly alerted the building security. The security confronted the two young men in the room, who said that there was no old man in the room. Sensing something amiss, the building people locked the door from outside, and before the police could arrive, the two young men escaped by jumping from the window.
In a twisted scheme, Palande lured Anuj to Goa with false promises of film projects and parties. With the younger Tikku away, his henchmen swooped in on Arun Tikku and stabbed him to death in cold blood.
The Gruesome Death of Karan Kakkad
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Shockingly, this wasn’t Palande’s first killing. A few weeks earlier, he had orchestrated the murder of Karan Kakkad, a 28-year-old aspiring film producer. Kakkad was drugged with sleeping pills, strangled, and his body dismembered. The remains were dumped in the forests of Chiplun to avoid detection.
Palande used his typical tactics — gaining his victims’ trust through his Bollywood connections, drugging them, and then eliminating them with ruthless efficiency. He even attempted to impersonate Kakkad online to cover his tracks.
Escape and Scandal
In a dramatic twist, while in police custody, Palande managed to escape, triggering a massive manhunt across Mumbai. His brief flight from justice raised serious questions about how such a dangerous criminal had managed to manipulate the system for so long.
Justice Finally Served
In 2017, the Bombay High Court upheld Palande’s life sentence, criticising police lapses but ensuring that he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. His accomplices were also sentenced, though several questions about possible police involvement remain unanswered to this day.
For Mumbai’s citizens, this case shattered illusions about the safety of high society and exposed the terrifying ease with which property greed can fuel murder. As for Palande, he now sits in a prison cell — a stark symbol of how unchecked ambition and a corrupted system can turn a man into a monster.
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