Chhattisgarh serial killer arrested before third attack

Police have solved two blind murder cases reported in the village of Bhalukona under Lavan police station in a gap of three years by arresting Tej Ram (32), a local villager, a couple of days ago denying him to target his third prospective victim, sources said.

The accused is deaf and dumb and hence, police had to hire services of a sign language expert to interrogate him.

The accused has confessed to the crimes, police said.

“In both the cases, the accused killed his victims, two women, out of panic when they raised alarms while resisting his attempt to rape them”, local deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Kaushal Kishore Wasnik told this newspaper.

The modus operandi of the accused was that he first identified a woman who was staying alone in her home, as his victim, then kept a watch on her for days and targeted her when he found her alone near a water body in the village, Mr Wasnik said.

In the first case, he befriended a woman, deserted by her husband, in his village and then allegedly attempted to rape her after finding her alone in the river bank on the outskirt of their village on May 29,2020.

The woman had raised an alarm which panicked the accused, police said.

The accused then hit the woman’s head with a log repeatedly till she died.

In the second case, he made a 56-year-old woman who was staying alone in her house since her two sons were away in Varanasi, his target.

The accused allegedly attempted to rape her after finding her alone near the village pond on March 13, 2023, according to the police.

He hacked her to death with a sharp weapon when she had raised an alarm while resisting the rape attempt by him, Mr Wasnik said.

The accused had set his eyes on his third prospective victim in the village before being arrested, the police said.

The accused was produced before a local court on September six which remanded him to judicial custody.