Women murders in Bareilly: Police intensify combing in jungles, patrolling on boats

Police officials preparing a pool of informers in every village in Shahi and Sheeshgarh police station limits to tip off about movement of suspicious people in the region.

Police vigilance has been intensified in villages of the Bareilly district mainly in Shahi and Sheeshgarh police station limits to trace the faceless killer after murders of eight women in the region falling under the two police station limits ranging around 35 kilometers.

Police intensify combing in jungles, patrolling on boats (Pic for representation)

Police officials said seven of these murders were reported from different villages under Shahi police station limits. The most recent one was reported from a village under Sheeshgarh police station limits on November 26. Most of the victims were strangled to death with a saree or a stole after finding them alone in farming fields and jungle areas during the daytime between 11 am to 5pm.

“We are vigilant and carrying out combing in jungle areas in search of suspects. The toughest task is to identify the suspects as there are no eyewitnesses to any of these incidents. The police are divided into different teams and allotted separate tasks related to intense combing of the entire region where these murders were reported and asked to verify credentials of people living in the region manually one by one,” said ASP (crime) Mukesh Pratap Singh while talking over phone.

The ASP said a group of personnel were combing jungle areas and crosschecking suspicious people found during the process. He said most of the incidents were reported within two kilometers of the bank of river Ram Ganga, so another group of cops were coming on boats and checking credentials of people living alongside the banks.

“We are hopeful that people involved behind these incidents will be soon traced and arrested,” he emphasised and added, “The police teams are also preparing a pool of informers in every village to tip off after spotting suspicious persons in and around the villages”.

The ASP said although it was not yet clear whether these murders were interconnected or not or whether it was the work of one person or different people. But residents suspect the involvement of a psychopath in the region, he said.

He said three of these eight cases were solved with three different people being arrested in the matter while police teams were deployed to crack the remaining cases. He, however, added that an advisory has been issued to villagers to not allow women to go out of their home alone and step out in groups of three-four, if necessary. They had been asked to follow this advisory till the police reached any conclusion behind these incidents.

Notably, the police vigilance has been intensified since Tuesday after Bareilly Zone ADG PC Meena, along with IG (Range) Rakesh Singh visited the affected areas on Monday and directed officials to work out the cases at the earliest. He asked them to do the crime mapping of incidents and analyze the crime pattern to nab the assailants.