Guj rape-murder accused killed Bally tabla teacher, 3 more in a mth: Cops
Times of India | 27 November 2024
Kolkata/Howrah: A 30-year-old man from Haryana's Rohtak, arrested from Vapi railway station in Gujarat's Valsad district last Sunday in connection with a rape and murder, has emerged as the prime suspect in the murder of a 60-year-old tabla player and teacher — a resident of Bally, Howrah — on a train on Nov 19.
Police suspect Bholu Karmvir Ishwar Jat, alias Rahul, had murdered at least five people between Oct 20 and Nov 24 in a killing spree spanning Gujarat, Bengal, Telangana, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Of those, Jat has "confessed", during investigation, to four — including that of Soumitra Chatterjee, the tabla teacher who was physically disabled. The cops said that the primary motive for Chatterjee's murder appeared to be robbery.
Gujarat cops told their Bengal counterparts that their probe started earlier this month with the rape and murder of a 19-year-old college student, whose body was found in a mango orchard at Udvada, Valsad. They said Jat came to Udvada on Nov 14 to collect his pay from a hotel, where he used to work. He spotted the 19-year-old, whom he raped and killed in the orchard, even eating fruit salad after the crime. He then walked 8km to Pardi station, where he boarded a train to Vadodara on Nov 14, Gujarat cops said.
Jat has been remanded in 20 days' police custody.
Bengal cops said Jat had "confessed" to at least four murders — all on trains — including Chatterjee's. This does not include the 19-year-old's rape-murder.
Chatterjee's body was found around 7.30am on Nov 19 (last Tuesday) on a compartment of the Howrah-bound Katihar Express with four-five stab wounds. Cops suspect he was murdered on the train somewhere near the Bengal-Bihar border, before the train reached Malda.
"So far, we have found that the only motive behind that murder was robbery," said ADG (South Bengal) Supratim Sarkar. He said a team of cops had left for Gujarat late on Monday. "We will question the accused and try to bring him to Howrah on transit remand," Sarkar told TOI.
Sarkar and his colleague, ADG (CID) R Rajasekaran, said on Tuesday that whatever information they had on the accused, Bholu Karmvir Ishwar Jat, alias Rahul, was based on details shared by Gujarat Police, apart from Bengal Police's own investigation, which involved tracking Chatterjee's mobile phone.
Investigators from Howrah GRP noticed Chatterjee's mobile phone was missing. The cops then began tracking it. On Nov 20, the day after the body was found, the phone's location was Andhra Pradesh; the following day (Nov 21), it was in Tamil Nadu.
"The phone was always found along railway tracks," Sarkar said, adding, "We suspected it was with someone travelling on the Ernakulam Express."
Chatterjee was travelling in a bogie specially reserved for disabled persons. Notably, the accused also "travelled extensively" in trains in similar compartments, as he, too, limps in his left foot, Rajasekaran said.
A dossier sent to Bengal Police by the Gujarat cops mentions Jat's "confessions" during interrogation. Apart from Chatterjee's murder on Nov 19, there were three more: a woman travelling on the Mangalore Express last Sunday; the murder and robbery of a man on a train from Bengaluru to Murdeshwar on Oct 25; and a woman in Oct on a train between Pune and Kanyakumari — whom he also raped — near Solapur station in Maharashtra.