The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Police team takes alleged serial killer to Pune

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Sunday, Jan 20, 2008
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Police team takes alleged serial killer to Pune

Special Correspondent

BANGALORE: A police team from Bangalore on Saturday took Chandrakanth S. Sharma (46) to Pune to ascertain the claims made by him that he murdered 21 people in Maharashtra between 1978 and 1981.

According to the police, Sharma confessed to these killings after the Kempe Gowda Nagar police arrested him, his wife and son on charges of murdering a retired Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) engineer S.V. Raghavan here on January 10, 2008.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Alok Kumar told The Hindu on Saturday that it would take them at least three days to verify the claims made by Sharma as these murders had taken place over two decades ago.

With the assistance of the Pune police, Sharma would be taken to those places where the murders were reportedly committed.

As Sharma had said that he murdered a few people at Hotel Amarapali and Delhi Durbar in Pune, the police would question the proprietors of these hotels to verify his claims. Though there was a hotel called Amarapali in Pune, it was not located at that particular place as claimed by Sharma. It needed to be ascertained if the hotel had been shifted to a new place, Mr. Kumar said.

“If we can establish that at least a few people whom Sharma has named were reported missing or had died an unnatural death, we can intensify the investigations into other cases,” the DCP said.

After Sharma was brought back to Bangalore, he would be subjected to polygraph and brain mapping tests at the State Forensic Sciences Laboratory.

“During these tests if we find that he is concealing some thing, we would seek the court’s permission to subject him to narco analysis also,” Mr. Kumar said.

Reacting to reports that Sharma could have committed more murders in Bangalore, he said the investigations so far had not revealed any thing in that regard. Sharma, a native of Nasik, migrated to Bangalore in 1985. A city court remanded him in police custody till January 28.

During interrogation, Sharma claimed that in some cases he had thrown the bodies of the victims into the sea and had managed to hush up a few other murders by bribing the police, Mr. Kumar said.

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