BHOPAL: A 19-year-old tribal youth, who worked as waiter in hotels and restaurants in Pune and Goa during the best part of his teenage years, allegedly committed the serial killings of three chowkidars in three nights in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh recently.
Inspired by social media and YouTube videos, besides the Kannada film KGF, the youth identified as Shiv Prasad Dhurve, targeted only those sleeping in the open during the dead of the night, owing to which the chowkidars were his softest targets. As per sources privy to his grilling, he was planning to target cops on night duty next to become more infamous and loot more money and phones.
A native of Kesli in Sagar district, he was arrested by Sagar district police from the posh Kohe Fiza area in MP's capital city in the wee hours on Friday just a few hours after he had committed the fourth brutal killing of a young chowkidar in Khajuri area of Bhopal. Two cell-phones belonging to the last two targets in Sagar district were seized from him.
CCTV grabs retrieved by the police from the spot of the latest killing in Bhopal showed Shiv Prasad repeatedly battering the 23-year-old chowkidar Sonu Verma, who was sleeping, with a block of marble stone outside the marble showroom where Sonu had been working since four months after the death of the latter's chowkidar father.
In the 44 seconds CCTV clipping, which has gone viral, the alleged serial killer is seen sitting on the road after battering the sleeping young chowkidar to death.
"In his primary grilling during day long police remand, the accused has confessed committing all the four killings in the dead night, including three serial killings in Sagar and the Thursday-Friday intervening night killing of young chowkidar in Bhopal, which happened at around 1.25 am," Sagar district police superintendent Tarun Nayak said.
While his last victim was a young chowkidar in Bhopal, prior to that his three previous victims, Kalyan Lodhi, Shambhu Narayan Dubey and Mangal Ahirwar, were aged between 40 and 60 years. All four murders in Sagar and Bhopal were committed in five nights.
"He had returned to native Sagar from Goa (where he worked as a waiter in a hotel) around 2-3 months ago and was jobless since then. While working at a hotel in Pune Shiv Prasad (then aged below 16 years) was held for attempting the murder of his hotel boss and spent months in jail there before being released on bail," Sagar SP Tarun Nayak said on Friday.
"Drive to become infamous, loot money and cell-phones from his victims, inspired by the social media, YouTube videos and the Kannada movie KGF, till now has emerged as the prime reason behind the serial killings. Ongoing probe, however, hasn't revealed any other aide to his crimes. So far his role in the May 2022 killing of another chowkidar in Makronia area of Sagar district hasn't been established," a senior police officer in Sagar said.