Hang him if guilty, don’t tarnish family image: Son
AADESH KHAMBRA, 48, WAS ARRESTED ON SEPTEMBER 7 FOR ALLEGEDLY KILLING 33 PEOPLE IN FOUR STATES; HIS SON SAYS HE WAS ‘ABNORMAL’ BUT CAN’T BELIVE THE CHARGES
MANDIDEEP(RAISEN): It’s been a fall from grace for the family of Aadesh Khambra, 48, who was arrested on September 7 for allegedly killing 33 people in four states. Shubham, Khambra’s 25-year-old son, describes his father as “abnormal”, but can’t believe the allegations. “Hang him if he is guilty, but don’t tarnish my family’s image without any evidence,” said Shubham.
According to the Bhopal police, Khambra, a tailor, has confessed to murdering 33 people, including 30 truck drivers and cleaners of trucks, with the help of two alleged accomplices, Jaikaran Prajapati and Tukaram Banjara. The police said Khambra had been targeting truck drivers for the past 13 years. After disposing of the bodies, they would sell the trucks and the goods in them. All three men have been arrested.
Shubham, who works as a garden supervisor, is one of four siblings. He says relations between Khambra and the rest of his family are strained. “He used to beat my mother unnecessarily,” said Shubham.
About a decade ago, Khambra shifted to Bhandara in Maharashtra because his disciplinarian father threw him out. Khambra would visit his family in Mandideep occasionally, said Shubahm, adding his father did not contribute financially to the family. His mother makes ecofriendly, disposable plates and bowls at home. His younger brother is a motor mechanic and one of the sisters helps her mother in the business. The youngest of the Khambra siblings, a girl, studies in Class X. The eldest daughter is married.
However, Shubham doesn’t believe Khambra is a serial killer. He says the police don’t have concrete evidence against Khambra and that they’ve been changing their statements about where he was arrested.
“If there is any evidence against him, I will be the first to sever ties with him,” said Shubham.
“My great grandfather Shrinarayan Khambra’s name figures in the record books for contesting a number of elections. My grandfather Gulab Khambra was a subedar in the Indian Army,” he said. He showed a photo of Shrinarayan with former prime minister Indira Gandhi as evidence of his family’s stature.
The Khambra home is a prosperous-looking, pucca building in the maze of bylanes in the slum cluster of Bhoi Mohalla in Mandideep.
Vinod Thakur, a local, said, “Aadesh wanted to contest the civic body elections for the post of corporator on a national party’s ticket about two years ago. Nobody believes that such a cool person can turn out to be a dreaded serial killer.”
Ramkumar Tayal, whose shop was bang opposite Khambra’s tailoring unit in Mandideep once upon a time, said Khambra kept shifting his tailoring business at different places in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
The police believe Khambra’s criminal career began in the mid-2000s with extortion. He may have been ‘inspired’ by the notorious Ashok Khamra, who allegedly killed 100 truckers and was arrested in 2010. The police say Khambra described Ashok as his “uncle”.