Mallika in jail, but her motive for killings eludes cops

The Bangalore police are currently basking in the glory of the arrest of an alleged serial killer Kempamma alias Mallika.

The Bangalore police are currently basking in the glory of the arrest of an alleged serial killer Kempamma alias Mallika. Forty three-year-old Mallika, who also operated under half-a-dozen other names, is one of the first women to be accused of serial killing in the country. Her arrest, however, has raised several questions regarding the police investigation, usage of forensic science, record maintenance and information sharing in the police system in Karnataka.

The police have fixed the blame for the murders of six women, recorded between 1999 and December 2007, on Mallika, based on her admission and alleged modus operandi. The police story is that Mallika, estranged from her husband and mother of two, worked frequently as a domestic help, roamed around big temples and approached women who looked troubled with the promise of resolving their problems by taking them to other temples. She is accused of luring women to temples in rural Bangalore and poisoning them with cyanide before robbing their jewellery, mobile phones and other belongings.

However, with no computerised record sharing systems between police stations across Bangalore or other parts of the state, the local police are finding it difficult to provide an exact number of homicide cases involving similar modus operandi. Since the announcement of the arrest of Mallika, the police in the neighbouring district of Tumkur have said she could be involved in two cases in the district where women were found dead in hotels near temple towns.

Story continues below this ad

“We are hoping to question her after the Bangalore police finishes interrogating her. We have contacted the families of victims and witnesses, like the hotel staff, who could have seen her in Tumkur,” Superintendent of Police P Harisekharan said. The investigating officer in the Bangalore cases, S K Umesh, also reported the possibility of Mallika’s involvement in at least three more cases on Wednesday.

With more and more cases involving Mallika being reported every day, officials at the toxicology department of the state Forensic Science Laboratory have started an exercise of listing out all cyanide poisoning cases referred to the lab in recent years. “Cyanide poisoning cases come to the lab from around the state. Very often it is classified as suicide deaths. We are trying to look at the cases and the circumstances of the deaths again. Many times the cases are not referred to us. None of the six murder cases in which the police are investigating Mallika’s role were sent to us,” an officer at the forensic lab said. Senior police officials have labelled Mallika a pathological thief who committed murders for monetary gains. There is, however, no explanation to why the accused committed a sudden series of three murders post Oct 2007, after reportedly lying low for nearly five years. Moreover, the police are yet to trace the source of cyanide available only in certain laboratories and industries.