Bhopal: Adesh Khamra, a tailor from a small Madhya Pradesh town, is no ordinary offender - he is accused of killing more than 30 people but the 52-year-old is now seeking to turn a new leaf in his life by taking refuge in religious and motivational books in jail. According to officials of Bhopal's Central Jail, where Khamra is lodged, the undertrial is often found engrossed in religious scriptures , a far cry from his image of a dreaded man accused of committing heinous crimes.
The shocking murder of four security guards allegedly by a teenager, Shivprasad Dhurve (18), in Sagar district and Bhopal in less than a week recently has brought back the horrific memories of serial killer Khamra. He faced 34 cases of murder, which police claimed, he has admitted to committing after his arrest in 2018 most of the victims were truck drivers - but was acquitted in one of them.
In my observation, Adesh Khamra has become a person unaffected by any circumstances. No emotion, happiness or sadness, affects him. He is educated and spends most of his time reading religious and motivational books though he had been a vicious criminal, a senior official told PTI while talking about behavioural changes noticed in him in prison.
The official, who was posted at the Bhopal Central Jail till recently, said Khamra has been kept with criminals facing murder charges and such inmates remain under constant monitoring of prison authorities. Khamra has been scrupulously following all rules of the jail. It seems he is aware law will catch up with him for his crimes," the official said.
The undertrial was acquitted in one of the cases recently due to lack of evidence, he said. The jail official said the wife and son of the alleged serial killer occasionally visit the prison to meet him. Nabbing Khamra, a tailor by profession in Mandideep, a small industrial town some 20km away from the state capital Bhopal, was not an easy task for the police.
After a case of robbery and murder of a truck driver in the Bilkhiriya area in the outskirts of Bhopal was registered, we found clues about Khamra's involvement and started chasing him. We followed the truck he had looted, through mobile interception, to Sultanganj in Uttar Pradesh, but when a police team reached there, he turned back for his home in Mandideep, said Bittu Sharma, now Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) posted in Bhopal.
Finally, the police team tracked him down to Misrod in Bhopal after following him for 16-18 hours, said the lady officer, who was then-city superintendent of police (CSP). Initially, we had no clue he was involved in heinous criminal activities. But his involvement in 34 case of murders were revealed during the interrogation. The police corroborated the stories narrated by him with officials of other states, she said.
He has a criminal bent of mind. He went to jail in an attempt to murder case where he met another criminal Paramjeet, who showed him the way to earn easy money by looting trucks and selling the goods being transported in them along with the vehicles, Sharma said. Asked about Khamra's modus operandi, the police officer said he along with his accomplice used to narrate sob stories to truck drivers to get into their vehicles and would show urgency to reach home.
After befriending them during travelling, Khamra would offer sweets laced with sedatives to truck drivers and helpers. After sedatives would show their effect, Khamra and his accomplice would kill drivers and helpers by strangling them and then dump their bodies near culverts or secluded place, the official said. The ACP said police traced cases of murder committed by him between 2009 and 2018 in various states and bodies of victims were found at locations mentioned by him.
She said at least 12-14 murders Khamra had committed in Madhya Pradesh alone besides in other states like Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh. Sharma said after looting trucks, they would sell goods in them in the market and used to completely change the look of the vehicles before selling them entirely or their parts in West Bengal, Nagaland and in some cases in Nepal also.
Mandideep's former Nagar Parishad president Badri Singh Chouhan, a neighbour of Khamra, said the undertrial's family members would often get into fights with others. The members of Khamra's extended family were of aggressive nature and used to be involved in fights. Adesh was running a tailoring shop and lived like a normal man, but committed heinous crimes outside the town's limits, Chouhan said.
Atik Ahmed, a journalist based in Mandideep, said there was nothing suspicious about Khamra before he came into limelight and there was hardly any criminal record against him in the local police station. The family of Khamra has now shifted to Bhopal, he said. Ahmed said those close to Khamra say he used to financially help others from the money he made from his criminal activities. (PTI)
