A man who has been in Kolhapur Central Jail for years has turned out to be a serial killer responsible for more than 60 murders. Three months ago, the Ludhiana Police arrested one Baldev Singh, who confessed to 16 killings. He revealed that his partner in these crimes was one Baljinder Singh. The police have now managed to track down Baljinder and say that he is lodged at Kolhapur Central Jail in Maharashtra.
A profile carried by Open (‘On the Trail of a Serial Killer’, 3 August 2015) had reported how Baldev and Baljinder went on a killing spree, starting 2000. When he was interrogated, Baldev owned up to only 16 murders and said that more, “at least 60”, were committed by Baljinder. One of the aspects of Baldev’s confession that befuddled the cops was when he spoke of his involvement in a sensational robbery that had rocked Mumbai in 2001. Back then, he and Baljinder, along with five others, had killed eight people in a single night at a bangle factory that had employed them. Baldev had also claimed that Baljinder changed his name to Amarjeet Singh at the time. Within days of the incident, the Mumbai cops had nabbed this Amarjeet and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
“After tracking him down to Kolhapur, we showed each of the two accused photographs of the other,” said investigating officer Rajinder Singh of the Ludhiana Police. This was done to check the veracity of Baldev’s claims. “They recognised each other instantly,” Singh added. Buoyed by the development, the cops have now set in motion the legal process to get custody of the accused for questioning. One of their tasks will be finding out the antecedents and motivations of Baljinder, an accused in a stunning number of murder cases by any measure, one of which was described by a former police commissioner of Mumbai as “a strange story of human behaviour”.
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