A mobile phone, an orange scarf and 11 murders – how Punjab Police tracked down a ‘serial killer’

According to the police, Swaroop, who is now in police custody, would allegedly lure his victims – mostly truck drivers, labourers or roadside tea vendors — with the promise of physical relations, and then demand money from them. If they did not pay, he would allegedly murder them, police said.

“He told the police he strangled nine of his victims and beat two others to death,” a senior officer involved in the investigation told The Indian Express, adding that the accused was estranged from his family. “He would take away their mobiles and whatever money he could find on them.”

According to the police, several of the murders came to light when he was being questioned. Of his 11 alleged victims, five have been identified and police are looking for their families.

“In some of these cases, FIRs for murder will be lodged after we reach out to their families. We are also contacting police from neighbouring districts to ascertain identities of those yet to be identified,” Ropar SSP Gulneet Khurana said.

According to a senior officer, Swaroop, a high-school dropout, worked as a labourer in Dubai and Qatar in 2005-06.

“He returned to India in 2006 and started taking up daily wage jobs in and around Hoshiarpur. His wife and children disowned him in 2022 and since then, he has been living like a vagabond,” the officer said.

According to Khurana, since he left home, the accused mostly stayed in the areas of Ropar, Sirhind, and Hoshiarpur and worked as a cleaner.

“He would meet truck drivers in roadside dhabas and tea shops. He did not stay in one place for more than two days and, because he wasn’t in touch with his family or old friends, he evaded the police radar,” the officer said, adding that he would throw out SIM cards of the phones he stole.

The unravelling

It was the murder of Maninder Singh that set the police on his trail. When Singh, who worked at the toll plaza in Mauran village in Ropar district, didn’t return home on the night of August 19, his brother went looking for him.

“Maninder used to reach home by 8-8.15 pm. That night, when he didn’t return and his phone was also switched off, I went to the toll plaza and found he had left for home. We began searching for him and found his motorbike at a secluded spot about 400 meters from the toll plaza. I noticed a man dragging his body into the bushes. I tried to chase him down but he escaped into the darkness,” his brother said.

Maninder’s mobile had been stolen. This case led the Kiratpur Sahib police to begin investigating “blind murders” – homicide cases in which police had no leads – from the district as well as the neighbourhood. Jatin Kapoor, the officer in charge of the Kiratpur Sahib police station who was compiling a list of such cases, also got in touch with police from the neighbouring districts of Fatehgarh Sahib and Hoshiarpur.

“A pattern began to emerge – many of these victims were strangled and their mobiles had gone missing,” inspector Kapoor told The Indian Express. “Bodies in all these cases were either nude or in a state of semi undress, which raises suspicion of the involvement of a sex worker.”

At the same time, the police also followed up on another lead – an orange scarf, which likely belonged to the perpetrator, on Maninder’s body.

“We started questioning suspects involved in sex work, especially those who could be carrying such scarfs. When we spoke to a few people, we found out that a man had been seen with a similar scarf. We got a rough sketch made but that was not enough,” he said.

The breakthrough

Meanwhile, the police also tried to track down the victim’s missing phone. It was this that gave the police their most vital lead.

“Earlier this month, we managed to trace the phone to a shopkeeper from Samba, Jammu, who had switched it on. When we reached out to him, he told us he went to Ropar with a truck-driver friend and bought the phone for Rs 500 from a man at a roadside dhaba near Kiratpur Sahib. We showed him the sketch and he identified the man,” Kapoor said.

Armed with this clue, police began to look for the suspect in dhabas around Kiratpur Sahib and found the suspect in the village of Bharatgarh. “On interrogating him, he confessed to killing not only Maninder, but also revealed a horrific tale of a series of killings,” Kapoor said.

According to the police, Swaroop’s first alleged victim was an autorickshaw driver from Fatehgarh Sahib he could only identify as “Negi”. Swaroop allegedly strangled him in October 2023 and dumped his body in an abandoned room near a dhaba on the Fatehgarh Sahib-Bassi Pathana road.

According to the police, the other murders he confessed to were carried out on January 25, 2024, August 19, April 6, May 22 and August 15. In one case, the accused confessed to writing ‘Dhokhebaaz’ (cheater) on a victim’s back, while in another case, he stole his victim’s scooter. police sources said. This victim is yet to be identified. Details of several cases are still emerging, police said.