Bareilly serial killer called victims ‘shikaar’, kept noose knot on left; chilling details of crimes emerge

After nine women were found murdered over 14 months in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district, the police last week arrested a 35-year-old man for the spate of killings.

The police have claimed that the man, identified as 35-year-old Kuldeep Kumar Gangwar, is the serial killer they had been searching for. They said he had confessed to murdering six women.

The Bareilly police said Kuldeep Kumar Gangwar was spotted by them when he was talking to many women near sugarcane fields.

Here are some chilling details of the Bareilly serial killer

The police said all the women Gangwar allegedly killed were between the ages of 45 and 65. All were either strangled with saris or dupattas. He would commit these crimes in sugarcane fields because the crop provided a perfect cover for him.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Anurag Arya told The Indian Express that he attempted sexual assault on them. He said the victims had injuries to their inner thighs and chins.

Kuldeep Kumar Gangwar’s first alleged victim was a 45-year-old woman who had gone to a nearby village to get medicine for her backache. She was found dead in her husband’s uncle’s sugarcane field two days later. The husband identified the woman with her slippers.

In a nearby village, a 55-year-old woman was found murdered a few days after the crime. The police later installed CCTV cameras in several villages to catch the culprit.

After five victims, the killings paused for seven months. However, on July 2, 2024, the sixth woman was murdered.

The police said the accused took them himself to the crime spots.

His modus operandi was to kill women by strangulation. He would do this either with his bare hands or their clothes. The knots of the clothes were always tied to the left, reported IE.

Kuldeep told the police that his father would beat up his mother at the behest of his stepmother.

He would speak softly with women but he would get enraged if they resisted his advances.

The police say he may be involved in more murders. They said he called his six victims “shikaar”. He has no remorse.

He was married. However, his wife left him due to his tendency of violent outbursts.

Boasting about his heinous crimes and making fun of the police landed Kuldeep Kumar Gangwar in the police’s net.

How the police nabbed him?

A senior police official told HT that they had got a tip-off last month from a tea stall. A worker at the tea stall shared an audio clip with police personnel in which an unidentified person was boasting about the murders of women he had committed.

“The informer said the suspect seemed to be somewhat mentally unstable and was behaving in a very odd manner. He informed that the suspect was boasting about murders committed by him while sipping tea at the stall. The suspect was also making fun of the police that they were not able to arrest him even after so much effort,” he added.

The police then prepared sketches. His face matched with two of the three sketches.

The man confessed to six murders. He kept the belongings of these six victims to keep a count. The police have recovered these items from his possession.

The accused never carried any mobile phone nor travelled in any vehicle. “He often used to walk around and target lonely women working in the fields and jungle areas. He first used to ensure that nobody was around and then he would walk closer to the woman to make sexual advances. He would become violent and attack the woman on facing denial or resistance and strangle her to death. He used to tighten a knot made of the women’s clothes around their necks to ensure their deaths,” the officer said.

“When questioned, he admitted having sexual desires, but expressed his inability to rape any woman,” the officer added.