One victim was from Bantwal, the other was a labourer from Madikeri who was murdered in Mysuru

Mangaluru/ Mysuru: Serial rapist and killer Mohan Kumar, popularly known as ‘Cyanide Mohan’, was yesterday convicted in two rape and murder cases by two courts in Dakshina Kannada and Kodagu districts. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without remission till death.

While one victim was a beedi worker from Bantwal, the other was a cultivation labourer from Madikeri who was murdered in Mysuru on March 10, 2009. The CID investigated the cases.

Mohan, 56, who uses over 10 aliases, would befriend unmarried woman. In both the cases, claiming to be Anand, Mohan wooed women as a potential match for marriage and had in separate incidents met both at public bus stands.  After convincing them, he had taken his victims to lodges where he raped them and then took them to KSRTC bus stands and gave them cyanide in the guise of pregnancy termination pills. The victims consumed the pills in bus stand bathroom and died.

Investigations revealed that a 34-year-old beedi worker from Kedila, Bantwal, was raped and murdered in Madikeri on Jan. 23, 2009 and a 32-year-old agricultural worker Kaveri Manku from Madikeri was murdered in Mysuru on March 10, 2009.

After killing Kaveri, Mohan took her cell phone with a SIM card registered in her brother’s name. Mohan had used the same SIM to contact five other victims until October 2009, when he was finally caught for Anitha murder case. The call records of Anitha’s landline revealed she used to get into long conversations with somebody late in the night. Police found that the number belonged to Kaveri. A study of Kaveri’s call records revealed suspiciously high number of calls from a number none in her family recognised.  

This number finally led the investigating team to a couple of women who were found missing in Dakshina Kannada. They later traced the call records and zeroed in on Dhanush of Deralakatte in Mangaluru who told them it was given to him by his uncle Mohan Kumar. The number of rape and murder cases in which ‘Cyanide Mohan’ has been convicted for life has reached nine. He was involved in over 20 cases of rape and murder of women. Currently Mohan is under judicial custody and housed in Hindalga Jail, Belagavi.