Sydney, Apr 8 (IANS): Police in Sydney on Monday launched a search operation for a convicted double murderer who removed his electronic monitoring anklet while on parole and is now on the run.

Damien Peters, 50, was last seen at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, a suburb of the Australian city, on Sunday afternoon. His monitoring anklet was found later that evening, CNN reported.

The New South Wales (NSW) Police said it had been "forcibly removed".

Peters pleaded guilty in 2001 to murdering and dismembering two men in his apartment in Sydney's Surrey Hills neighbourhood. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, becoming eligible for parole in 2015.

Specifics of his current legal status were unclear except that he was being monitored..

The court was told how Peters, then 32, had stabbed 50-year-old Tereaupii Akai twice in the neck before cutting up his body and throwing it in the trash.

About eight months later, Peters stabbed 57-year-old Bevan James Frost to death while giving him a massage, before dismembering his body also.