MANGALURU: The Sixth Additional District and Sessions Court Dakshina Kannada, on Wednesday sentenced Mohan Kumar alias Cyanide Mohan to life imprisonment without remission on Wednesday in two cases. While one victim was a beedi worker from Bantwal, the other was a cultivation labourer from Madikeri.
Judge DT Puttarangaswamy sentenced the culprit to life imprisonment till death without remission for murder under section 302 of the IPC. He was also awarded seven years rigorous imprisonment (RI) each for sections 376, 328 and 307 of the IPC, and five years RI for section 392 and 201. For section 417 (cheating) he was given six months simple imprisonment. For the various sections of the IPC, a total fine of Rs 18,000 has been slapped on Mohan.
In both the cases, claiming to be Anand, Mohan was wooing the women as a potential match from the same community/caste for marriage and had (in separate incidents) met both at public bus stands where they were in the middle of some work. After convincing them, he had taken his victims to a lodge (separately) where he raped them and then took them to KSRTC bus stands and gave them cyanide in the guise of pregnancy termination pills. The victims consumed the pills in the bathroom of the bus stand and died. A UDR case was registered at the local police station while the family of the victims filed a missing case.
Both cases were revealed by Mohan himself on October 21, 2009, when he was arrested in the Anitha Murder Case. In his voluntary testimony, Mohan revealed the two murders. A 34-year-old beedi worker from Kedila, Bantwal, was raped and murdered in Madikeri on January 23, 2009 and a 32-year-old agricultural worker from Madikeri was murdered in Mysuru on March 10, 2009.
So far Mohan has received life imprisonments in nine cases and death sentence in one case which was considered the rarest of the rarest said public prosecutor Judith Crasta who is the counsel for the victims. District legal service authority (DLSA) has been directed to give victim compensation to the families of the women.
Robbed Cellphone plays evidence in five cases
Among the 37 material objects in the Madikeri agricultural workers case, was a cellphone with a sim registered in her brother's name. After murdering the woman in March, Mohan had used the same sim to contact five other victims until October, when he was finally caught for Anitha Murder case. Four of the cases have earned him life imprisonment and the fifth is due for hearing.