A 19-year-old school dropout, who allegedly killed four security guards in Sagar and Bhopal of Madhya Pradesh in the past six days, has told police that he wanted to become famous after he was nabbed by a team of Sagar police in the wee hours of Friday in Bhopal.
The accused, Shivprasad Dhurve, 19, had killed a sleeping security guard outside a business establishment in Lal Ghati locality of Bhopal just hours before he was arrested. Sources said that apart from confessing to three murders between August 28 and 31 in Sagar town in Madhya Pradesh, Dhurve also confessed to have attempted to kill another person in Pune of Maharashtra earlier.
He used a hammer, wooden handle of spade and heavy stones to bludgeon his victims to death.
Sagar police are also looking into his possible involvement in the murder of another watchman at a under-construction bridge site in May this year is being investigated, though Dhurve is said to have denied his role in the case.
Madhya Pradesh home minister Narottam Mishra confirmed the arrest of Dhurve to Dhurve and congratulated the police for their swift work in nabbing the killer.
Sagar superintendent of police (SP) Tarun Nayak told the media that Dhurve was 19-year-old and had worked in various places outside Sagar. The SP said that during initial interrogation the accused told the police team that he committed the crimes simply to become famous. Dhurve was a social media user and influenced by them too.
The accused is resident of Kesli area in Sagar, according to his Aadhar card, home minister Narottam Mishra said.
On the question why he selected security guards as victim, the SP said that the accused remained on lookout for lone sleeping persons to commit the crime. Senior officials of Sagar and Bhopal police were interrogating him further.
Nayak said that multiple teams of Sagar police were working on the case and had collected various evidences and statements, which were technically analysed. On this basis, they zeroed in upon the accused in Bhopal in the wee hours of Friday and seized a cell phone of one of his victims from him. This cell phone was used by the police team for triangulation to locate the accused.
Sources said that Dhurve told the police that he was inspired by the lead character ‘Rocky Bhai’ of the Kannada two-part movie ‘KGF-Chapter 1’ and ‘KGF-Chapter 2’.
The killing spree started in the wee hours of August 28 when he killed Kalyan Singh Lodhi, 57, a private security guard at a factory in Bhainsa locality under Cantonment police station in Sagar by hammering his head while Lodhi was sleeping. In the wee hours of August 29, Shambhudayal Dube, 60, watchman of the Arts and College College under the same police station area was killed by hitting his head with a heavy stone.
A cell phone was recovered near the body of Dube and later it was found to belong to Lodhi. Even as police started connecting the serial killing dots, Mangal Singh Ahirwar, who was sleeping at an under construction house in Motinagar area under Civil Lines police station, was hit with a handle of a spade on his head in the wee hours of August 31. Ahirwar was shifted to Bhopal for treatment and on the basis of his statements; a sketch of the attacker was released. Ahirwar however succumbed on Wednesday evening.
