The story of India’s first woman serial killer Mallika is a bone-chilling story. More so, because her murders were committed in the name of God!
Police say India’s first woman serial killer Mallika is not a psychopath
BANGALORE: The story of India’s first woman serial killer Mallika, who was arrested by the Bangalore police on Monday, is a bone-chilling story. More so, because her murders were committed in the name of God!
The 43-year-old murderer, who has six other false names, is a resident of Budukatte village on Kanakapura main road in Bangalore rural. Mallika, alias Kempamma, alias Laxmi, alias Savitramma, alias Jayamma, alias Shimoggamma or Kala, has studied till class five in the Budukatte.
She married Devraj, a tailor at the Neuro Institute of Mental Health and Science (NIMHANS) in Bangalore. He abandoned her after she incurred huge losses in her chit fund business and loan recovery agents began harassing the family in 1998.
Mallika stayed at various temples at the outskirts of Bangalore and pretended to be an agony aunt to women in distress, who narrated their stories of woes to her. Mallika, on the pretext of performing puja to get rid of their problems, asked the victims to come to a temple far away from their homes. During prayer, she would offer them water or prasadam laced with cyanide and kill them. Her first victim was 30-year-old Mamatha Rajan of Hosakote in October 1999.
Mallika resurfaced in 2002 when the Bidadi (Bangalore rural) police caught her while robbing jewellery and later in 2007 when she committed five serial murders in two months.
Mallika is the first female in the long list of serial killers in the country like Auto Shankar, Thug Behram, Mondinder Singh Pandher, Raman Raghava, Charles Shobraj, Stoneman and Surendar Kohli. However, she is not a psychopath or a mentally imbalanced person, said the police commissioner of Bangalore N Achuta Rao.
How they nabbed her
On reading the news of the murder of 30-year-old Nagaveni in Doddaballapura on December 18, Kalasipalya inspector S K Umesh took interest in the case. He collected the details of Mallika and her other victims Elizabeth, Yashodamma, Pillamma and Mamatha Rajan.
Observing that the modus operandi was similar in all the murder cases, he searched for cell phones and landline numbers of women Mallika had called from different numbers.
The Kalasipalya police were tipped off on December 30 that a lady was suspiciously trying to sell jewellery and two cell phones. On taking Mallika into custody the police seized jewellery worth Rs 1 lakh, two cell phones and two SIM cards. During interrogation, the cyanide killer narrated her heinous tale of serial murders.
k_bhargavi@dnaindia.net
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