The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : High on alcohol, he went on killing

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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

High on alcohol, he went on killing

Staff Reporter

Prize catch: City Police Commissioner A.K. Khan producing ‘serial killer' Ramachandra Rathore before the media in the city on Thursday.

HYDERABAD: Ramachandra Rathore, who was arrested on charge of killings six people in the State capital, had no motive for the gruesome murders and had propensity to turn extremely violent whenever he took alcohol.

Rathore, 55, arrested by Narayanguda police on Thursday, also had past criminal history and was in and out of jail several times on charges of theft, police have found during their investigation into one of the rare cases of serial killings in the State capital.

The arrested man became an orphan after his parents died when he was six years old and took to burglary from childhood, Commissioner of Police A.K. Khan said at a press conference here on Thursday. What surprised the police was the fact that he had no strong motive in any of the six murder cases. “He did not even take away huge money or jewellery from the victims but killed them,” the Commissioner said. Hailing from Gulbarga of Karnataka, Rathore had been moving from one place to another aimlessly.

He had no family and used to sneak into houses and take away whatever he could lay his hands on. He was arrested in theft cases in Mahankali, Chilakalguda and Chaderghat stations earlier. Rathore would confess to his involvement in thefts, serve his term and take to crime again after his release. Curiously, he never retained an advocate to defend him. Police say he was allegedly involved in several theft cases in Karnataka and is suspected to have committed murders there. He was in jail in 2008 in a case of robbery and was set free this March. “The accused, somehow, became more violent afterwards and started killing people either by strangling them or smashing their heads with boulders,” Narayanaguda Inspector, Gandhi Narayana, said.

Police claimed that Rathore admitted to have murdered G. Gopal, 60, watchman, and Anjaneya Manga, 35, in Nallakunta (on July 3), Y. Krishna Yadav, 60, watchman in Narayanaguda (on August 3), Ashok Kumar Jha, 45, security guard at SBH ATM centre in Khairatabad (on August 1), B. Naresh, 19, a student, (on August 25) at Barkatpura and L. Tarun, 28, hotel worker, at Narayanaguda (on July 12).

In an inexplicable development, police accused Rathore of killing of Tarun, but they had earlier arrested a labourer Srinivas Goud in the same murder case.

Incidentally, Goud was found lying next to Tarun's body with bleeding wounds on roadside near Deepak theatre. The Narayanaguda police later arrested him on July 28 on charge of killing Tarun after fighting with him over monetary dispute.

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