KOLKATA: West Bengal Police on Saturday arrested an alleged serial killer in connection with the murder of at least six women over the past five months in and around East Burdwan and neighbouring Hooghly districts.
Kamruzzaman Sarkar, a small-time trader of discarded materials, was arrested in Kalna area based on CCTV footage the police recovered from near the house of one of the victims. Police zeroed in on a man riding a red-and-black motorcycle with a nylon bag tied to its pillion. The bag contained a chain and an iron rod which police believe was used in the crimes.
Two other women narrowly escaped strangulation attempts as they fought hard, forcing Sarkar, who pretended to be an employee of the power supply agency, to flee.
Sarkar, attired in trendy clothes, would enter homes during afternoon hours in the pretext of taking electricity meter readings and then pounce upon the women with a cycle chain and an iron rod, East Burdwan Superintendent of Police, Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay said. Sarkar would have sex with the women after murdering them. Police suspect that Kamaruzzaman Sarkar was also involved in murders dating as far back as 2013.
“Post mortem reports confirmed that two of the victims were sexually assaulted,” said Bhaskar Mukherjee, superintendent of police, East Burdwan.
The SP said that the police sought Sarkar's custody to interrogate him on his role in the other four murders, all of which were committed in the same manner.
Police said that the accused had allegedly inserted sharp materials into the private parts of some of his victims following their death. "We are interrogating him to understand why he targeted middle-aged women," the SP said.
In order to nab Sarkar, the police had prepared a sketch based on the description provided by the survivors and circulated it around the district.
Police are yet to ascertain whether Sarkar is psychologically imbalanced. A father of three children, Sarkar is from Murshidabad and settled in Monteshwari two years ago and identified himself as a scrap dealer.