LUCKNOW: Serial killer Kuldeep Gangwar, 35, who had been on the run after committing multiple gruesome murders over a period of 14 months in Shahi-Sheeshgarh area of Bareilly district, was nabbed by police on Friday. The district police had launched a massive hunt for the criminal after spotting the body of the ninth victim on July 3. In all, 22 police teams were deputed to nab the perpetrator who had been leaving a pattern behind every killing. The police investigation on the basis of around 1500 pieces of video footage besides other clues gathered from the localities where the killings were reported indicated that a single individual was involved. All the murders had striking similarities with the victims in the age group of 45-55 years, strangulations done around noon and the bodies discarded in sugarcane fields. The massive hunt for the serial killer named ‘Operation Talash’ was led by Bareilly SSP Anurag Arya. As per Bareilly police sources, besides deploying around two dozen police teams and rummaging through CCTV footage, 600 additional cameras were installed within a range of 25 kilometres to nab the perpetrator. Moreover, the police authorities also made used of Google mapping to track his location and screened data from 1.5 lakh mobile phones, deployed female decoys on secluded stretches and combed other states as well where serial murder cases were cracked. As per the police probe, the criminal belonged to Nawabganj, approximately 45 kilometres from the crime scenes. However, he used to frequently visit his kin in three villages in Shahi-Sheeshgarh area. The mapping of the area revealed a triangle within which all the killings occurred. As per the police sources, the teams captured videos of the daily routine of the killer wherein he could be seen loitering around the villages often stopping to talk with a few village women in groups.According to SSP Arya, the villagers played a significant role in tracking the killer. They described a man who used to roam around from farm-to-farm, avoiding roads to evade identification by police pickets. “We released his sketches on Tuesday on the basis of the information we had gathered over a month. Within a day, we were able to identify our suspect. However, our teams, in the guise of villagers, did not apprehend him immediately, instead collecting more information about him,” disclosed the SSP. The SSP said that after being arrested, the killer admitted to his crime in at least six killings so far. On the potential motive behind the killings, the SSP, while talking to the media, said that the perpetrator Kuldeep had a troubled childhood and youth having witnessed brutalities on his mother by his father on the instigation of his stepmother.Following such incidents of violence against his mother where he could do nothing to save her from the wrath of his father, Kuldeep nurtured a hatred for women, especially those in the age group of 45-55 years as they reminded him of his stepmother. The SSP further explained that as he grew up, Kuldeep inherited his father’s aggression. Over time, he also became addicted to various substances. In the meantime, he got married and started torturing his wife in the same way as his father used to do with his mother. His wife eventually left him and married someone else. Frustrated by those developments, Kuldeep started roaming the village roads and targeted lonely women out of vengeance, strangulating them with their sarees, said the SSP.
Source link
