Amarjeet Sada: The World’s Youngest Serial Killer

Bihar, India, is the country’s second-largest state, with more than half of its population under the age of 25. In fact, statistics show that Bihar has a higher proportion of youth than any other Indian state.

For most, this demographic reality represents potential and growth—but for one resident of a small town, it created the perfect environment to carry out his heinous crimes.

In 1998, a boy was born in Musahri, a small poverty-stricken village in Bihar. His name was Amarjeet Sada, the son of impoverished laborers with little education and a constant struggle to make ends meet.

With his parents often away, working long hours just to put food on the table, Amarjeet was frequently left alone—unsupervised and largely to his own devices.

As the boy grew older, his parents began to notice that he kept to himself, rarely mixing with other children in the village. Many avoided him, unsettled by his increasingly violent tendencies. Yet despite these clear warning signs, there was no intervention from his family—his behaviour left unaddressed, quietly worsening over time.

In 2006, when Amarjeet was just eight years old, he was left alone to watch his six-month-old cousin while his aunt went to the local market. During one of his violent outbursts, the young boy began to pinch and slap the infant, seemingly deriving a disturbing sense of satisfaction from its cries. He ultimately went on to beat the baby to death. Disturbingly, his family would choose to leave the murder unreported, considering it to be a "family matter".

Seeing that he could quite literally get away with murder, Amarjeet felt immune to consequences and that same year, he would go on to also strangle his 8-month old sister to death.

Perhaps overwhelmed by shame and desperate to conceal their son’s actions from the community, Amarjeet’s parents once again chose to remain silent.

Amarjeet’s final victim would ultimately lead to his capture, as his violent acts finally extended beyond his own family. This time, the target was his neighbour’s 6 month old daughter, Kushboo.

One day, Kushboo’s parents had put her down for a nap. When they checked on her a short while later, she was gone. Alarmed, they reported her disappearance to the police, setting off a full-scale investigation.

Before long, suspicion fell on the troublesome young boy next door, and Amarjeet was taken to the police station for questioning.

During his interrogation at the Bhagalpur police station, Amarjeet bizarrely asked for biscuits in exchange for information about what he had done to the baby. He then proceeded to recount a horrifying and gruesome story.

He smiled with a chilling menace as he told the officers that he had struck the baby with a brick before strangling her. He then led them to a shallow grave where her tiny body had been buried.

Having gone beyond the realms of his inner circle whereby his actions would be swept under the rug, Amarjeet had grown more brazen, turning into a fully fledged serial killer whose limits showed no end. If he had not been caught, it is clear that he would have gone on, taking as many lives as he could.

As the case drew nationwide attention, the country was stunned by the horrifying reality that an 8 year old boy had become the world’s youngest serial killer.

Because of his age, Amarjeet could not be tried as an adult, and under Indian law, he was ineligible for the death penalty or life imprisonment, as he was well below the age of 18.

Instead, Amarjeet Sada was sentenced to serve time in a juvenile detention centre until he reached adulthood. He was reportedly released in 2016 at the age of 18.

Today, his whereabouts remain unknown, and due to privacy laws, no further information has been made public.