MANGALORE: In his cell, middle-aged Mohan Kumar is making notes from the reams of paper scattered around him. It isn’t an easy task—and the hunched stocky serial killer lodged at the Mangalore district jail knows it.
Once a science teacher, he was arrested 17 months ago for allegedly raping and murdering 20 young women in a span of five years— for gain. At 48 today, ‘Cyanide’ Mohan, as he is called, is bent on finding lacunae in the CID’s charge-sheets ahead of his trial.
A glib talker, Mohan used to work in a government school and had married thrice. In 2003, he quit his job on sensing the lucre that crime can fetch him, given his thirst for sex and money. His modus operandi was simple. After scouting out a young woman in a public place, Mohan would introduce himself as a government teacher. He would then begin wooing her.
Later, he would plan a trip with her to some place outside the district limits. Once at the hotel room, Mohan, with promises of love and marriage, would seduce the woman into having unprotected sex. He would convince them to swallow a birth-control pill—only that the material would, in reality, be cyanide. Once dead, she would robbed of her jewellery and rest of the possession.
The strategy was replicated 20 times—and successfully at that.
Among the victims was a certain Leelavathi. This woman of Kudambettu village was thought to have joined the Naxal movement when she went missing in 2005.
The police even placed a reward on her head. Another was the case of Anitha—of Barimaru village.
When went missing in June 2009, the Sangh Parivar claimed she was a victim of “love jihad”.
The man, by then, had spread his criminal activities—geographically.
In fact, he is believed to have killed women from districts across the state. Since the police in one district never shared information about unclaimed bodies with other districts, Mohan’s brutal murders went unchecked.
With doctors issuing certificates of natural deaths without conducting post-mortems on the bodies of the victims, no suspicion of foul play arose. “He is not your average psychopath, but a brilliant strategist,” notes seasoned special public prosecutor Cheyabba Beary, who retired in 2008 but has been recalled by the Karnataka government to see this case through.
Since Mohan has a history of narrow escapes from the law, the CID is taking no chances. They have lined up at least 55 witnesses for each case. Kumar, who was arrested on October 21, 2009, will be tried under nine sections of the IPC including murder, rape and robbery. The CID has now written to the High Court to transfer all the cases from the various districts to the Fast track Court in Mangalore. This is expected to happen in May, after which the court will decide Mohan’s fate.