A 28-year-old man, arrested on Thursday for allegedly sodomising and killing a factory worker, has claimed he forced nearly 50 people into having sex with him over the last few years despite being HIV-positive, Madhya Pradesh Police said.
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According to investigators, the suspect said he had evaded law enforcement for so long because his victims, whom he targeted late at night on Bhopal’s streets, never filed police complaints against him.
The worker’s body was found on May 24. “Police found the dead body of a man who used to work in a factory at Mandideep,” Katara Hills police station Town Inspector Sunil Dubey said.
“We were treating it as a murder case, but during interrogation, the accused informed us that he had repeatedly sodomised the deceased on the pretext of helping him find a good hotel. When the deceased threatened to file a police complaint, he hit him three times with a stone and killed him. He took the deceased’s mobile phone and sold it to another person,” he said.
The mobile phone helped police trace and arrest the accused, Dubey added.
Police are now tracing the survivors after the accused tested HIV-positive on Friday following a medical examination.
“He said he was never caught because people were too ashamed to report him to the police, while some engaged with him voluntarily. Police are now trying to identify them. He was also active in an LGBTQ community group and targeted men while concealing his disease. Police are now tracing the individuals with whom he came into contact,” Additional Commissioner of Police Rajnish Kashyap said.
A case under Section 103 (murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) has been registered, but more sections will be added after the investigation, the officer said.
