Bangalore: Police Arrest a Killer Family - 21 Murders in 20 Years
Times of India
BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS: Chandrakant Sharma (left) with son Monto and wife Harsha on Friday
Bangalore, Jan 19: The city seems to be throwing up cold-blooded murderers at an alarming rate. Even before Bangaloreans could come to terms with the arrests of the first woman serial killer Kempamma and the ‘treasure hunt’ killer Ravindra, another murderer has surfaced.
The K G Nagar police arrested Chandrakanth Sharma when they were trailing the case of Raghavan, a retired assistant executive engineer murdered recently. Shockingly, Sharma has revealed that he had committed 20 murders in Nashik, Mumbai, Pune and Aurangabad 20 years ago. He made this confession after he, his wife Harsha and son Monto were arrested recently on charges of murdering Raghavan, their landlord, for asking them to pay the rent arrears, police said.
The trio had killed Raghavan in Hennur on January 11, and transported the body to Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu and burnt it.
Raghavan (62), a resident of Nanjamba Agrahara in Chamarajpet, had rented out his house in HBR Layout to Sharma. However, when a cheque of Rs 1.5 lakh given by Sharma towards deposit bounced, Raghavan got worried. Sharma kept on giving excuses and on January 11, Raghavan went to his house to collect nine months’ rent.
As they had planned, Sharma and his son stabbed Raghavan to death, while Harsha helped her husband and son to wrap the body in a sheet and put it in the boot of their vehicle. Near Hosur, they bought a can of petrol. Later, they went to a secluded place in Soolagiri in Krishnagiri district, and set the body on fire.
Back home, Raghavan’s son Madhavan, an engineer in Chennai, lodged a missing complaint in KG Nagar police station. Madhavan got a clue that his father was last seen at their Hennur house. When approached, Sharma acted suspiciously. The KG Nagar police summoned Sharma to the police station and during interrogation, he confessed to the crime.
“It was a pre-planned murder. Monto had bought a used car, and had fixed a PRESS sticker on it. They laid the body in a ditch, doused it with petrol and set fire to it. However, a portion of the body remained unburnt, which helped Tamil Nadu police to trace Raghavan’s address. They contacted us with the help of some telephone numbers and other chits found in the back pocket,’’ DCP south Alok Kumar said.
Son of Sundarlal Sharma, a doctor in Nashik, Chandrakanth shuttled between Mumbai, Nashik and Aurangabad. He told the police that between 1978 and 1981 he killed many people over frivolous issues. In some cases, he used chloroform to make the victims unconscious and would later use weapons to kill them. Strangely, he had thrown some bodies into the sea.
“He has been giving distorted statements about all those murders in Maharashtra. Many of the hotels and other landmarks he has mentioned doesn’t exist today, but we found that they were there in 1980s. He kept on changing names of his victims and places of occurrence. Hence, it’s better to put him through lie detector test.’’