3-yr-old’s rapist assaulted, killed 8 others: Police

POLICE SAID THE SUSPECTED ‘KILLER’ LURKED AT COMMUNITY KITCHENS (BHANDARAS) NEAR SHRINES AND KIDNAPPED MINOR GIRLS WHO VISITED FOR PRASAD

The man arrested on Monday from Uttar Pradesh’s Jhansi for allegedly raping and killing a three-year-old girl in Gurugram’s Sector 66 on November 11 was a ‘serial killer’ and a paedophile who has confessed to sexually assaulting and murdering at least nine minor girls in Gurugram, Delhi, Gwalior and Jhansi, the police said on Tuesday.

According to the police, Sunil Kumar (20) confessed to raping and murdering three minor girls in the city, three in Delhi, one in Gwalior, one in Jhansi . Police added that the location of one murder case isn’t clear.

Police said the suspected ‘killer’, who took up daily wage work for short durations, lurked at community kitchens (bhandaras) near shrines and kidnapped minor girls, usually between three to eight years of age, who were unattended and visited the kitchens for prasad (religious offering of food).

He used to sexually assault the girls and murder them to avoid being identified, the police said. Sunil Kumar was arrested a week after the body of his latest victim, the three-year-old girl, was found.

Sumit Kuhar, deputy commissioner of police (DCP), crime, who headed the special investigation team (SIT) formed to arrest the suspect, said the November 11 rape and murder was the third such crime on a minor girl committed by the suspect in the city and he had evaded arrest in two similar cases in Gurugram between November 2016 and January 2017.

“He kidnapped a five-year-old girl from Pir Baba shrine in Civil Lines on January 5, 2017 and after raping her, he dumped her body in a septic tank at Drona Park near Rajiv Chowk. Her decomposed body was found 20 days later. On November 24, 2016, he raped and strangled a four-year-old girl and dumped her body in a vacant plot near Omaxe mall on Sohna road. The girl’s mutilated body with multiple injuries including nail and burn marks on the face, was discovered two days later,” said Kuhar.