The first attack occurred in April 1998, when at 13:00, 17-year-old Dil Bahada, while swimming in the river, was dragged underwater in front of his girlfriend and several eyewitnesses. No remains were found, even after a three-day search spanning 5 kilometers. Three months later, at Dharma Ghat, a young boy was pulled underwater in front of his father. No corpse was ever found.
Nine years later, in April 2007 at Nagru Ghat, the attacks began again. Eighteen-year-old Atal Kumar, while swimming in deep water with his friend, was suddenly dragged underwater. During the attack, a villager named Surendra Bohra got a glimpse of the attacker, describing it as looking like an "elongated pig", and identifying it as a "soos". A search party undertaken by the entire village found no remains or clothing.
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British biologist Jeremy Wade volunteered to capture the perpetrator. Though originally skeptical of the truth behind the attacks, he later became intrigued because the attacks only occurred in a specific area spanning 4–5 miles. He was told by the villagers that the creature likely developed a taste for human flesh and had grown large after eating half burnt human remains discarded from funeral pyres on the river banks. After examining the water where Bahada had disappeared with a depth sounder, Wade discounted the possibility of the boy having been dragged by a whirlpool, the attacks all occurred in areas without turbulence. Later, a kilometer away, a domestic water buffalo was reportedly dragged underwater by a strange animal while drinking in water only one meter deep. Wade theorised that the creature would have had to have weighed 200–300 lbs in order to do so.
All three species of sympatric crocodile were dismissed; saltwater crocodiles were not known to travel so far inland and the jaw structure of gharials prevents them from killing humans or buffalo. Mugger crocodiles, the most common Indian species, did not inhabit the cold, torrential waters of the Kali River. Also, crocodiles had never been seen on land to bask or breed. Although bull sharks were initially considered, an underwater investigation in the area where the buffalo disappeared by marine biologist Rick Rosenthal yielded no sightings of bull sharks. Furthermore, Wade believed that bull sharks would not have lived so far upriver, and there had been no sightings of dorsal fins breaking the water's surface. However, during the underwater investigation, a meter long goonch catfish was sighted, which Wade unsuccessfully tried to capture. Later underwater investigations yielded numerous group sightings of goonch, six of which were man-sized.
After an unsuccessful attempt was made at capturing one with a fishing rod, a funeral pyre was set up in order to lure one in. A record breaking 6 ft goonch was captured the day after, and was weighed at 75.5 kg (166 lbs), three times heavier than an average goonch. Although Wade estimated that the fish was strong and large enough to eat a small child, he stated on interview that he believed that larger specimens were likely to exist, and that the specimen he captured was not large enough to be the alleged maneater, based on the sizes of the victims.
