On missing kid’s trail, cops land serial rapist and killer

NEW DELHI: When DCP (Outer Delhi) Vikramjit Singh set out to investigate the case of a missing six-year-old, little did he know he would end up arresting a serial child rapist and murderer, who would confess to having committed 15 such acts since 2009.

In a grim reminder of the 2006 Nithari serial killings, Ravinder Kumar, a bus cleaner, confessed to luring children with candy, raping them and then killing them, the police said.

With his confession, cops claimed to have solved at least five child rape and murder cases in the city, and registered a case against him in the latest murder — that of the missing six-yearold girl.

They also said they had alerted their counterparts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana about possible cases there.

Kumar’s “inspiration” came from a film called Maa where an actor was shown raping and murdering children, he is said to have told interrogators. A few months later, Kumar preyed on his first victim — a boy he sodomised and strangled. Over the next five years, he spread his reign of terror to UP and Haryana.

The resident of outer Delhi’s Karala village was arrested last year too on charges of child rape and attempted murder but was released on bail. Unfazed, he struck again, killing the sixyear-old girl in the Begumpur area on July 14 (Tuesday), the police said.

He would have escaped justice this time too but was undone by a mistake — he dropped a driving licence he had stolen from a friend at the crime scene.

24-YR-OLD CONFESSES TO RAPING AND KILLING 15 MINORS SINCE 2009 AFTER LURING THEM WITH CANDY, SAYS WAS INSPIRED BY A MOVIE