New Delhi: On Sunday afternoon, bystanders found a car parked near a flyover in Peeragarhi in Outer Delhi district. Inside were the bodies of two men and a woman. The PCR was alerted. Police reached the spot, and recovered the bodies before recording the statements of next of kin.
Family members of the deceased dismissed suicide as probable cause, after which police registered a case and launched an investigation which led them to Kamruddin—a ‘tantrik’ out on bail in another murder case.
Kamruddin, said Delhi police, fed the three deceased poison-laced sweets.
“The accused lured innocent persons on the pretext of providing ‘dhan varsha’ (flow of income) through tantrik rituals. He would gain the confidence of victims, mentally influence them, and administer poison mixed in laddoos to kill them and rob them of cash and valuables,” DCP (Outer District) Sachin Sharma told the media Wednesday.
The three victims in this case, all Delhi residents—Randhir (76), Shiv Naresh Singh (42) and Laxmi Singh (40)—were killed in the car, he added.
Senior officials said investigators recovered bottles of liquor and soft drinks, along with empty glasses, from the car. This gave way to the suspicion that there might have been another person in the car.
Next, investigators traced the movements of the victims and found that they had travelled to Loni in Ghaziabad on the day of the murders as well as the previous day. Further investigation revealed that the three victims frequently visited a ‘tantrik center’ run by Kamruddin in Loni.
Laxmi, the police found, was the first to be introduced through Kamruddin about two months ago, through an acquaintance. She then roped in the other two victims, Randhir and Shiv Naresh Singh. Kamruddin, it is learnt, convinced them to let him perform a “pooja” (ritual) for “dhan varsha”.
For this ritual, he asked them to bring Rs 2 lakh in cash, along with bottles of liquor and soft drinks.
“Kamruddin was apprehended and interrogated. Initially, he tried to mislead the investigation but could not provide satisfactory explanations,” DCP Sharma said. “He later disclosed that he prepared poison-mixed laddoos and accompanied the victims in their car.” After he fed them poison-laced laddoos, Kamruddin took the cash and fled the spot.
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‘Tantrik’ Kamruddin was out on bail
DCP Sharma also told the media that Kamruddin faces two similar cases. In May last year, Firozabad police arrested and charged him with the murder of two men who were found dead under mysterious circumstances. The victims, Ramnath and Puran, frequently visited Kamruddin who allegedly took money to perform rituals he claimed would make them rich.
In their statements to the police, family members of both victims claimed one day they went to Kamruddin’s place of residence and saw him inciting Ramnath and Puran to die by suicide. Their efforts to discourage the two, they said, were in vain. The next day, the bodies of both victims were found in an empty glass factory in Firozabad town.
A few days later, Kamruddin was named as an accused in the case and taken into custody. But the Allahabad High Court granted him bail in September last year.
He then shifted base to Ghaziabad’s Loni.
According to DCP Sharma, Kamruddin had at least one more case registered against him in 2014 in Rajasthan’s Dholpur. However, he was not convicted in this case filed under 302 (murder), among other sections, of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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