Mangaluru: A court here has sentenced a notorious serial killer to death for the murder of an anganwadi worker from Bantwal in Dakshina Kannada district in 2005.
The sixth Additional District and Sessions Judge Sayeedunnisa handed down Thursday death penalty to ‘Cyanide’ Mohan for raping and murdering the woman October 22, 2005 at the Kempegowda bus station in Bangalore. The judge had Tuesday convicted Mohan for various offences, including murder, in the case.
Mohan has also been sentenced to various prison terms, including 10 years for abduction, seven years for rape, 10 years for poisoning, five years for robbery, 10 years for voluntary causing hurt in committing robbery, one year for cheating and seven years for destroying evidence.
All sentences will run concurrently till the death sentence is confirmed by the high court, public prosecutor Judith OM Crasta said. The judge also directed the district legal services authority to pay compensation to the victim’s sister.
This is the fourth murder case in which Mohan has been awarded death sentence. In two previous verdicts of capital punishment, the sentences were commuted to life imprisonment and five years’ imprisonment by the high court.
With the latest verdict, Mohan has already been convicted in 17 murder cases. Trials in three other murder cases are still on.
After a series of cases of luring women with an offer of marriage on false identities, rape, and killing them with ‘contraceptive’ pills laced with cyanide, Mohan was finally arrested by Bantwal Rural police in 2009.
In the latest case in which the verdict has been delivered, Mohan got acquainted with the anganwadi worker from Bantwal, took her to Bangalore on the promise of marriage. He then had sex with her and gave her a cyanide pill at the bus station the next day convincing her that it was a contraceptive pill.
PTI