Muktsar, January 12
The police today dug out another skeleton buried on the premises of the abandoned Gurmeet Rice Sheller owned by the former Congress MP, Mr Jagmeet Brar. The skeleton is believed to be of seven-year-old Sarita, who had been missing since September 3, last year.
In a major breakthrough the police arrested Mukesh Kumar, a 25-year-old migrant labourer belonging to Uttar Pradesh, who confessed to having murdered the five children, including the four whose bodies were recovered from the sheller on January 9. He lives on the Jalalabad road. The accused, Mukesh Kumar, also admitted that he had sexually abused the five children before strangulating them to death.
The skeleton of Sarita was recovered from the same room where the bodies of the other four victims were discovered. The accused had buried Sarita's body near the doors of the unused storage room of the sheller.
The Inspector General of Police (Bathinda Zone), Mr V.K. Bhawra, told The Tribune, that police had questioned Anguri, a relative of the victims, who had expressed suspicion that one person called Ramjane could have committed the crime. He said when the police rounded up Ramjane and questioned him about the sheller killings, he told the police that Mukesh Kumar could be behind the crime. The police immediately rounded up Mukesh Kumar, yesterday afternoon, and during interrogation he confessed to the crime.
The IG said Mukesh was a drug addict and had even undergone three-year imprisonment after being convicted in a case related to possession of narcotics. Besides, he is still facing several criminal charges, including those of thefts and possession of narcotics. During questioning Mukesh admitted that he had lured the five children into the sheller and had killed them after sexually abusing them all. He had even tried to erase evidence from the crime scene.
Mr Bhawra said the accused had told the police that he had no other accomplices and he had committed the crimes all by himself. As was being suspected, Mukesh Kumar knew all the five children and had made them accompany him to the sheller on the pretext of giving them some eatables.
