‘Serial rapist’ arrested after brief encounter

Uttar Pradesh police had announced a cash reward of ₹1 lakh on his capture after he raped a minor girl behind the PWD guest house in Gursahaigunj in October 2022.

KANPUR: After a hunt of six months, the police finally caught alleged serial rapist Ramji Varma, wanted in eight cases of rape with minors and murder of at least two of them.

He was arrested after a brief exchange of fire with the Kannauj police, in which he was injured. (Pic for representation)

He was arrested after a brief exchange of fire with the Kannauj police, in which he was injured. Uttar Pradesh police had announced a cash reward of ₹1 lakh on his capture after he raped a minor girl behind the PWD guest house in Gursahaigunj, in October 2022.

The picture of the girl soaked in blood begging for help and curious onlookers clicking pictures and making videos instead of offering help, had gone viral on social media. The footage taken from 132 CCTV cameras, which showed a man tailing the little girl, helped in his identification.

SP Kannauj, Kunwar Anupam Singh, who was spear-heading the campaign for his capture, said Varma used to do elaborate recce in disguise after carefully selecting the victim. As soon as he got a chance, he raped and killed the child.

At present, he has eight cases against him and is said to have killed two children in Kannauj-Farrukhabad region. “We will seek his remand once he recovers and get the help of psychoanalysts in the investigation,” said Singh.

Police tracked Verma on Thursday night, on way to his village Khudagunj near Tejarakhot in Gursahaigunj. Seeing the police, he hid behind a tube-well in Malikpur village. “On being asked to surrender, he fired at the police. He got a bullet injury in the leg when the police fired back,” Singh said.

After Gursahaigunj case, the police found he had committed similar offences in 2018 in Farrukhabad and Kannauj. He was caught in the third case and sent to jail on March 3, 2018. Locals had caught him in a field after he raped a minor girl and handed him over to the police.

During interrogation, he had confessed to killing two children in 2018—one in Kannauj and another in Kamalgunj in Farrukhabad. Since he was a juvenile at the time of arrest, he was sent to a juvenile home.

He was released in October, 2023 and he raped the nine-year-old girl in Gursahaigunj. She had gone out to buy a piggy bank and was found on the PWD guest house campus by some children who were playing nearby.

SP Kannauj said the remand would be taken from the court as the police believed he had committed more crimes against children than were known.