On 9th August, a serial killer identified as Kuldeep Gangwar was arrested by authorities in Uttar Pradesh. He murdered at least nine women between the same age group in the Shahi and Sheeshgarh areas of the Bareilly district. He is a resident of Bakaragnj Samuha village in the Nawabganj police station area. He reportedly has mental health issues. His wife left him due to his antics which infuriated him and he started killing females. He claimed the lives of nine women within fourteen months.
He was married to Longshree of Bhanpur village, ten years ago. She left him and took another man as her husband due to his odd behaviour. He developed an intense hatred for women afterwards. He frequently visited his aunt’s (father’s sister) house in Sabzipur Khata village in the Shahi region. He killed the females in a serial manner due to his aversion to the latter. He was taken into custody after a probe. Several police units led him to the crime locations and reenacted the murder scenes after which he was brought to Bareilly.
The women, who were between the ages of 40 and 65, were killed in the nearby police station areas of Shahi, Sheeshgarh, and Shergarh. There were no indications of a sexual assault, but the victims in each case were discovered in sugarcane fields with dishevelled clothes. The majority of the women were strangled to death with their sarees, which was another recurring theme in the killings. Three incidents occurred in June of last year, all within a brief period followed by one murder each in July, August and October, two in November and the latest instance in July of this year. The victims were killed in hamlets within the jurisdiction of two police stations, within a 25-kilometre radius.
“Our teams have been investigating this case for six months and have not ruled out the possibility of a serial killer due to the nearly identical modus operandi of the murders. Based on some leads, we have now released sketches of three suspects,” Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) Prashant Kumar earlier told media. “The pattern is clear – strangulation around noon, bodies dumped in farms, and post-mortem ruling out sexual assault. Our investigations, including electronic surveillance, have hit a dead end,” Bareilly Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Anurag Arya informed in a previous statement. The women were urged to move in groups for their safety by the village chief. Notably, the perpetrator has now been nabbed by the cops.
The first murder was recorded in June 2023, and the most recent victim was a 45-year-old woman who was discovered dead on 3rd July. The killings persisted, and by November there had been eight confirmed deaths, following a seven-month break after which the trend resurfaced this year.
What is a serial killer?
A criminal who kills two or more people without a reason over an extended period of time is known as a serial killer. Psychological pleasure is the primary driver behind the murders committed by a serial killer. The majority of serial killers exhibit consistency in the kinds of victims they target and the manner in which they carry out their killings. Since independence, India has had many serial murders. The most recent was Ravinder Kumar, who was captured in July 2015 after raping and killing a six-year-old child. Afterwards, Ravinder Kumar acknowledged that over the course of eight years, he had raped and killed at least thirty additional children in Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
The “vivid and accurate” details of these crimes that he remembered, had shocked investigators. He was awarded life-term by Delhi’s Rohini court. “Among the crimes, he confessed to was the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl in Hathras in 2013. In that case, Ravinder described the exact location and date on which he had committed the crime. When I called the Hathras police, they confirmed the details, and said the girl’s father was currently under trial for the rape-murder,” revealed an official.
