‘Serial killer’ returns to haunt Mumbai

After beer cans were recovered near two of the victims, the local tabloids labelled the murderer as the “Beer Man”, taking off ominously from Mumbai’s past experiences – the Stone Man of the late 80s and last year’s Hammer Man. The Mumbai Police, meanwhile, has formed a Special Investigative Team (SIT) to probe the murders. “It is a very serious matter for us, and right now, we have taken it as our top priority to detect these cases and apprehend the culprit before he kills more people,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Arup Patnaik. “We are working round the clock on the job and we will deliver results soon.” The Crime Branch is also on the job.

The first of the eight murders took place in Marine Drive, south Mumbai, on October 5. This was followed by two more murders in the same area within a fortnight. The police initially dismissed the notion that these were the handiwork of a serial killer. “It would be wrong to say that a serial killer is responsible,” Mumbai Police Commissioner AN Roy had said at the time. “There are some undetected murders which are always a serious concern for the police and we are taking them seriously as they need to be detected.”

Opinion is still divided on whether all eight murders can be attributed to one killer as victims have been crushed to death by a heavy object, possibly a stone, or stabbed in the chest. “Serial murders are the hardest to detect as there are seldom any eyewitnesses or survivors to describe the killer. I cannot conclusively say that there is one serial killer responsible for all these deaths,” Roy said. “They may be unrelated cases which have been clubbed together by the media. It would be rather strange for a murderer who has succeeded in killing someone in a particular fashion to change his method.”

Deputy Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch, Dhananjay Kamalakar, said while stabbing would require planning, bludgeonings are usually spontaneous acts brought on by the rage of the moment. “These cases are harder to detect than stabbings as there is very little by means of a trail leading from the murder weapon to the killer,” Kamalakar said. “Also, there may be cases where people might take advantage of the media hype of a serial killer to eliminate an enemy in a similar fashion so that it passes off as the work of the same killer.”

All eight victims were poor and supposedly ragpickers and drug addicts living on pavements near the railway stations in south Mumbai. Only one victim has been identified so far. Forensic examination of the victims has also revealed signs of sexual intercourse, leading investigators to believe that the murderer is a homosexual.

Dr Yusuf Machiswala, president of the Bombay Psychiatric Association, has a profile of the alleged serial killer: “He is a homosexual and suffers from a personality disorder of some kind. He must be having some sort of a dysfunctional background and is trying to make up for some inadequacy he sees in himself. He is a pyschopathic killer who is intelligent and enjoys watching his victims die. It is probable that he hails from a reasonably well-off family. He might not be an alcoholic but likes to commit the murders when he is on a high.” The hunt is on.

SERIAL FEARS

Raman Raghav: Raghav terrorised Mumbai in the 1960s, bludgeoning pavement and hutment dwellers to death while they were asleep at night. The unemployed Raghav had been sent to jail earlier for robbery but there was no linking him to the murders. After the murders in 1968, an alert sub-inspector, Alex Fialho, picked him up from the road. Raghav confessed to killing 23 people in 1966 and 12 in 1968.

Stone Man: Between 1985 and 1987, 12 murders took place in Sion and King’s Circle in central Mumbai. Again, the victims were homeless people sleeping in desolate spots. Each of them was attacked on the head by a large stone. The killer was not caught; the murders ceased after 1987.

Hammer Man: Allegedly inspired by a free-style wrestler, Vikas Tak (19), used a hammer to attack women and rob them. Nobody was killed. On November 10, police arrested Tak, a sweeper from Haryana, after he tried to rob a housewife in Goregaon.