The Desi Crime Podcast

187. The Murder of India's Badminton Star: Syed Modi

Every year, on a Thursday in December, the best badminton players in the world, from China, Indonesia, Japan, Denmark, arrive in Lucknow to compete in a tournament. Flags go up. Stadiums fill. A name echoes across the announcer's PA system, repeated hundreds of times over several days, until it becomes just background noise to the people who have heard it their whole lives. That name is Syed Modi. What the crowds in those stadiums rarely talk about--what the gleaming trophy and the BWF World Tour branding don’t mention--is that Syed Modi was twenty-five years old when two men shot him dead outside a stadium gate in Lucknow on a July evening in 1988. He was India's greatest badminton player of his era. He was a Railway employee's son from a sugar mill town nobody had ever heard of. He was a husband who was betrayed. He was a father--of a two-month-old daughter he would never see grow up. And then, one evening, he was a body in a pool of blood. This is the story of Syed Modi. And it is also the story of everything India let get away.

Chai & Chithi 33 | The Girl On My Ceiling

Welcome to Chai & Chithi, a segment where we read some of the scariest, most terrifying, and most haunting stories that YOU send in to us. In this week’s episode, we’re reading: To send us your scary stories to read, write to us at staydesi [at] thedesistudios [dot] com.For extra episodes, early access, silly bloopers, subscribe at: https://www.patreon.com/thedesistudios or join our YouTube family https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbfV0YvrxWMq3h0hmo13Jg/joinFor fastest updates, follow our socials at: https://www.instagram.com/desicrime/Aryaan https://www.instagram.com/aryaanmisra/Aishwarya https://www.instagram.com/aishwaryasinghs/To buy Desi Studios merch, visit: https://kadakmerch.com/collections/desi-studios

186. The West Chester Quadruple Murder

West Chester, Ohio. A clean, quiet suburb where Indian families build their “American dream” one grocery run, one school pickup, one festival at a time. But on April 28th, 2019, that dream turned into a crime scene. Inside a single apartment, four adults from one Indian family were found shot dead— not together, but scattered like someone had moved through the home with purpose. A woman on the kitchen floor. An elderly aunt lying in the hallway. A mother-in-law in the living room. And the father-in-law inside a bedroom. There was no broken door. No struggle loud enough for neighbors to hear. Just a story that would shock an entire community and embroil a state. This is the story of the Westchester quadruple murders.For extra episodes, early access, silly bloopers, subscribe at: https://www.patreon.com/thedesistudiosJoin our YouTube family: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbfV0YvrxWMq3h0hmo13Jg/joinFor fastest updates, follow our socials at: https://www.instagram.com/desicrimehttps://www.instagram.com/aryaanmisrahttps://www.instagram.com/aishwaryasinghs/To buy Desi Studios merch, visit: https://kadakmerch.com/collections/desi-studios

185. The Khairlanji Massacre

On a quiet evening in September 2006, something horrifying happened in the small village of Khairlanji. By morning, four members of a single family were gone — and the village was silent. At first, the story seemed unclear, almost deliberately so. But as details slowly surfaced, the crime revealed something far darker than a simple act of violence. What happened in Khairlanji wasn’t just brutal — it exposed wounds that ran deep within Indian society, and sparked outrage that would shake an entire state. This is the story of the Khairlanji Massacre.

184. The Mysterious Death of Wasim Thajudeen

It's 10 p.m. on May 16, 2012, and Havelock Town pulses with the electric hum of Colombo's nightlife, a cold breeze from the Indian Ocean fans across Sri Lanka’s capital city. Inside El Greco nightclub, Wasim Thajudeen, 27 and built like the rugby captain he is—broad shoulders and an easy smile—holds court at a corner booth. The clock ticks 11:30 p.m. "Gotta bounce, lads," he says to his friends. Hugs ripple through the crew; a chorus of "Drive safe!" and "Text when you're wheels-down!" fades as he weaves out in his black BMW X5. Nothing about that night appears unusual. There are no warnings, no raised alarms, nothing that suggests it will end any differently from countless other nights in Colombo. But something happens that night. Wasim never makes it to the airport the next morning. He never boards his flight. He never leaves the city. This is the story of Sri Lanka’s golden boy, a national rugby star. This is the story of Wasim Thajudeen.