DHNS
- She poisoned 6 with cyanide in city
Bangalore, Jan 1: One of the most chilling of the country's serial murder sagas perhaps the first involving a woman spilled into the open here on Monday with the arrest of 43-year-old Mallika by the Kalasipalya police.
A resident of Badakatte village in Kaggalipura hobli on Kanakapura Main Road nere here, serial killer Mallika allegedly poisoned six women to death with cyanide over the past eight years. The accused hung around temples and picked on all her victims from among the women devotees.
Besides arresting the “cyanide killer”, the police have recovered jewellery worth over Rs one lakh from her. The Kalasipalya police were tipped off on Sunday evening that a woman was suspiciously trying pledge jewellery and sell two cell phones at the Kalasipalya bus stand. A police team led by Inspector S K Umesh rushed to the bus stand, took the woman into custody and found two cell phones and two SIM cards in her wallet, besides jewellery. On interrogation, the woman, who identified herself as Mallika, started singing and startling details of the serial murders began tumbling out.
Reported from three districts of South interior Karnataka — Bangalore Rural, Tumkur and Mandya — over a span of eight years, the six murder cases seemed unrelated and the police too had failed to unravel any common thread in them. This despite four of the murders being reported within a span of eight days in December 2007. Of the six cases, three were registered as mysterious murders, while the remaining three were termed unnatural deaths, Commissioner of Police N Achutha Rao told reporters here.
Mallika — whose aliases include Lakshmi, Savithramma, Kempamma, Jayamma, Kala and Shivamoggamma — had deserted her family nearly a decade ago. Her son is a car driver with a travel agency. While one daughter holds a diploma in fashion designing, another is studying MA.
She allegedly committed all the murders single-handedly and for gain. She is no psychopath, the commissioner said.
The police said the accused purchased cyanide for Rs 200 from a gold polishing shop on Old Kasai Road in Medarpet here. The quantity of cyanide she purchased was enough to put to death at least 2,000 people, they added.
Mallika ran a chit business in early 1990s and incurred heavy losses. With money lenders making her life difficult and her kin also turning against her, she left her husband and children in late 1998. She first moved to Tumkur district and began staying mainly in temples there.
She frequently changed the temples where she stayed. She is believed to have stayed in temples at Chikka Koratagere and Yediyur of Tumkur district and Sathanur of Bangalore Rural district.
Modus operandi
Posing as a pious woman who was acquainted with pujas and religious rituals, Mallika befriended well-to-do women devotees frequenting the temples. She recommended a host of rituals and poojas to women devotees, to overcome their bad times. Winning the confidence of her potential victims, Mallika would suggest to them that she herself would conduct pujas and rituals at some temple.
She used to choose the temple with great care to ensure that it was nowhere near the victim’s place. She would then take her victim to the temple and rent out a room in the choultry attached to it. Once inside the room, she would begin performing pujas and ask the victim to close her eyes.
Later, she would thrust cyanide into the the victim’s mouth. Mallika would then decamp with the jewellery or any valuable.
The first of Mallika’s murders was in October 1999. Most of the remaining murders were committed in similar fashion barring one when she strangulated a woman first and then administered cyanide into her mouth. The police are looking into the long time gap between the first and the second murders: nearly eight years. Mallika has identified her victims as Mamtha (30) of Hoskote, Elizabeth (52) of Banaswadi, Yashodamma (60) of Yelahanka, Muniyamma (60) of Chikka Bommasandra and Pillamma (60) and Nagaveni (30), both Hebbal.