MANGALORE: Its may become the trial of the decade. Mohan Kumar alias Cyanide Mohan, 48 year old pushed the Agatha Christie envelope by allegedly seducing, poisoning and then looting 20 young women. One former mother in law even says with awe that he has tantric powers to attract young women.
As the trial unfolds, various aspects of his personality reveal a deeply complex character: a serial seducer who looted the young women he ensnared; a brilliant amateur lawyer who is arguing his own case impressing other lawyers; a murderer driven by guilt so much that he would perform stree hatya dosha (the sin of murdering women). Cyanide Mohan is the first serial killer in India to reject legal counsel and chose to defend himself. Mohan Kumar was born poor. The second of four children of labourers, he was determined to do better for himself. He studied to become a schoolteacher and started his career in 1980. In 1981 he married his first wife, who he fortunately divorced the same year. Few believe he is a killer; wives, neighbours and childhood friends call him gentle and soft spoken.
Mohan’s modus operandi was to identify a single young woman in a public place, introduce himself as a government teacher and begin wooing her. Once she was under his spell, he would propose marriage, plan a holiday out of town, and have unprotected sex with her. He would convince her to swallow a birth-control pill, in reality a cyanide pill, and once she was dead would escape with her possessions, including jewellery. His victims were even maligned after their deaths: Leelavathi was thought to have become a Naxalite after she disappeared in 2005 and the police placed a reward on her head, little knowing she was murdered by Mohan. Anitha, who went missing in June 2009 was declared a victim of “love jihad” by the Sangh Parivar.
Because district police do not share information with each other, Mohan was able to continue unhindered until he was arrested in October 2009. A search of Mohan Kumar’s third wife's house yielded 10 cyanide tablets and a dozen visiting cards under different names, But it’s a tough battle for the prosecution. The police had buried the corpses of women discovered in toilets thus destroying all evidence. Lawyers say without eyewitnesses and post mortem reports revealing death by cyanide, the prosecution faces a daunting task of pinning the charges of murdering the women in Mohan Kumar. In spite of the evidence, all his living wives and mother-in-law are standing behind Cyanide Mohan Kumar, describing him as innocent.