India: Serial killer named 'Cyanide Mohan' sentenced to death in Karnataka
Sentenced to death for a murder and rape but said to be linked to more than 30 murders
Serial rapist and murderer ‘Cyanide’ Mohan Kumar was sentenced to death on Thursday, October 24.
He was sentenced in the case of a rape and murder he committed against an Anganwadi (rural child care centre in India) worker in a village in south Karnataka.
The VI additional district and sessions judge Syedunnisa had convicted Kumar of rape and murder on Tuesday, October 22, and handed the sentence two days later.
The murder occurred in 2005.
The death sentence will be executed if the Karnataka high court confirms it. According to The Hindu, the present case is the 17th being tried against serial killer and the fourth in which he was awarded the death sentence.
The Karnataka high court overturned the death sentence in two of the previous cases, reducing the sentences to life imprisonment and five years of rigorous imprisonment. In the third case, the High Court confirmed the death sentence. He has been convicted in all 17 cases, while three others are pending, the TheWire.com reported, a news website based in India.
Along with the death sentence, ten years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000 (Dh259) was imposed for the charge of abduction.
For the offence of rape, he has also gotten seven years of imprisonment and another fine of Rs 5,000.
The victim’s sister will be compensated by the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA), the judge ordered.
Mohan who is currently lodged in the Hindalga Central Prison in Belagavi, a city southwest of Karnataka, was present through a video conference when the sentence was pronounced, according to The Hindu.
The prosecution said that the perpetrator lured the victim to Bengaluru before giving her a dose of cyanide.
When the victim died, she was cremated as an unidentified person. However, a case of unnatural death was registered. Kumar confessed to the murder after his arrest in September, 2009.
Several women found dead in Karnataka restrooms
The killer got the name ‘Cyanide’ Mohan’s as police suspected that he is involved in as many as 32 murders. All of his victims were women and killed after being given pills laced with cyanide.
He would lure the women with the promise of marriage, rape them and then take them to the nearest bus stand. At the bus stand, he would ask the women to take a pill, purportedly a contraceptive that was laced with cyanide. He would direct the women to go to a restroom to take the pill because it would make them sick, according to The News Minute, Indian news website.
After Kumar’s arrest, cases of several women dying restrooms across Karnataka that were previously thought to be unrelated, were reclassified as murders.