Serial killer nabbed in M'lore

He killed 18 girls in 5 years after promising them to marry

Mohan Kumar (46) from Kanyana of Bantwal taluk is the offender who has confessed to have killed 18 girls during the last 5 years by luring them into an love affair, promising them of marriage and then killing them using cyanide to gain possession of their jewellry.
Mohan Kumar was a temporary primary school teacher who quit the profession in 2003 after 23 long years of stint as teacher.

The investigation into chain of killing started with one missing case of a girl named Anitha (22) from Barimaru village of Bantwal taluk on June 17, 2009. A special team was formed to trace the girl and the team while tracing Anitha’s mobile calls found that there were calls registered between Anitha’s number and the number of another girl who went missing. With more and more instances of contacts between various missing girls being established, the team finally zeroed in on a person who was using the handset of a girl who was also missing. On interrogating this person, he informed that it was Mohan Kumar who had given him the mobile. The team collected all details of Mohan kumar and on Wednesday, they nabbed him from Deralakatte, where he resides with his third wife.

His criminal antecedents can be traced back to the year 2000 when an attempt to murder was booked against him. He had lured a girl to marry him and on refusal he had tried to push her off Nethravathi bridge in Dharmasthala. He was later handed over to the police by the locals. The case was acquitted in the court for insufficient evidence.

IGP (Western Range) Gopal Hosur addressing the reporters on Wednesday said that the offender had used the same modus operandi in all the 18 killings. He said that Mohan is not a psychopath and he knows what he had done. He had committed killings with the intention of quenching his sexual urges and to gain jewellry to eke out money. His target was to get 2 to 3 victim every month.

He said that the offender had selected his target from lower strata of the society, lured them into a relationship, took them to outstation on pretext of some religious ritual before marriage, established physical relation and convinced the targets to go to public toilets and consume cyanide saying that it is a medicine to prevent pregnancy. In this way, most of the dead bodies of his victims were found in public toilets and hence many of the cases were written off as suicide cases of depressed women.

Of the 18 girls, 5 are from Kasargod and 13 are from Dakshina Kannada district, of which 4 are from Bantwal, 2 are from Sullia, 3 from Puttur, one from Mudabidri, two from Belthangady and one from Mangalore. He had killed 10 out of 18 in Mysore, 3 in Madikeri, 2 in Hassan, 2 in Bangalore and one in Kollur. Hosur said that the person who had supplied cyanide to Mohan has been identified and a case has been booked against him too. Hosur said that there is a need to bring in some strict laws with regard to selling of Cyanide soon as cases of killing using Cyanide is on a rise. Hosur said that a special team will be formed to look into the case as it is a inter state case. He lauded SP Dr Subramanyeshwar Rao, Puttur ASP Chandragupta and his team for the success and informed that he would discuss with the DGP about awarding the team in a day or two, during DGP’s visit to Mangalore.