Javed Iqbal Mughal was born in 1961 in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. He was the sixth of eight children in his family. His father was a businessman. Javed attended Government Islamia College as an intermediate student.

While he was still a student in 1978, Javed started a steel recasting business. He lived in a villa in the Shad Bagh area of Lahore. This villa was purchased for him by his father. Javed shared this villa with some boys. Growing up, he had a family that was relatively well-off due to his father's business. 

In December 1999, Javed Iqbal confessed to the murder of 100 boys through a letter sent to the police and a newspaper editor. He claimed that all his victims were between 6 and 16 years old. Most of these boys were vulnerable, often runaways or orphans who lived on the streets of Lahore. Iqbal wrote that he had strangled and dismembered them before disposing of their bodies in vats of hydrochloric acid. He claimed to have dumped the acid into a local river.

When police searched Iqbal's house, they discovered bloodstains on the floors and walls. They also found a chain that he said he used to strangle the boys and photographs of the victims in plastic bags. These photographs were labeled with names and ages. In the house, the authorities found two vats containing partially dissolved human remains. Iqbal had left a note claiming he wanted the police to find the bodies deliberately.

After he confessed, Iqbal mentioned his intention to drown himself in the Ravi River. A large manhunt was organized once he went missing. Four teenage boys, who had lived with Iqbal, were arrested. Shortly after, one of these boys died while in police custody, which raised concerns about police conduct.

Iqbal had expressed that his motive for the murders was to make the mothers of his victims suffer as he believed he had suffered an injustice at the hands of the police earlier in his life.

A month after sending the letter, Iqbal turned himself in at a newspaper office on December 30, 1999. He stated that he feared for his life and believed the police might kill him. He was sentenced to death by a judge, who said that Iqbal would face a punishment similar to what he had inflicted on his victims. However, this sentencing was contradicted by the Interior Minister, who pointed out that such forms of punishment were not allowed under human rights laws in Pakistan.

On October 9, 2001, Javed Iqbal and an accomplice were found dead in their prison cells. Authorities ruled their deaths as suicides by hanging with bedsheets. Autopsies indicated that both men had been beaten before their deaths. Iqbal's body went unclaimed after his death.