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Serial killer targeted strangers for fun. His family called him ‘Psycho Razi’: Cops
His family back in Bihar, by his own admission, called him “Psycho Razi”, 22-year-old Mohammad Razi told the Gurugram police after his arrest.
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His family back in Bihar, by his own admission, called him “Psycho Razi”, 22-year-old Mohammad Razi told the Gurugram police after his arrest, but it was the desire to make something of himself, to show the world that he could achieve something, he added, that made him start killing people.
The Gurugram police said that Razi may have been involved in at least 10 murders in Gurugram, Delhi, and Bihar. He was arrested on Thursday from Gurugram’s Iffco Chowk, a week after he allegedly killed three men on three consecutive days in Sector 29 and Sector 47, police said. Investigation is ongoing, and the alleged killings outside the state are yet to be authenticated.
CCTV footage from eight cameras of all three spots had one common factor -- Razi. So the police launched a manhunt and on Thursday, they got their man.
A resident of Khalilabad village in Bihar’s Araria district, Razi worked as a labourer at different construction sites in Gurugram. Before he moved to Gurugram in September, he worked at a roadside eatery and a guest house near Jama Masjid. Until July, when he moved to Delhi, he worked in Nepal, according to Gurugram’s police commissioner KK Rao.
Preet Pal Sangwan, assistant commissioner of police (crime), said Razi’s modus operandi was the same: he would drink along with his victims, stab them, and, in some cases, dismember the bodies. “He had no motive but revealed that he enjoyed killing people and believed it was an easy way to become famous. He is a drug addict and used to spend money, which he stole from his victims to buy alcohol,” he said.
During questioning, he shared chilling details of his criminal past and said he started killing people in Gurugram and nearby areas in October for “fun” after drinking. It was only later that he started robbing them as well. His targets were people in parks and other uncrowded areas. Most of them were strangers to him.
“He boasts that he has killed many strangers in Delhi’s parks and in Bihar due to which he had to run away from those locations before police could identify him. He has named a few parks in Delhi and areas in Bihar, but we are yet to identify the murder cases,” a police officer said on condition of anonymity.
Sangwan said Razi would be assessed clinically and psychologically.
“He has no regrets. He said his family never supported him and always blamed him for bringing misfortune to them,” the officer added.
Razi told the police that on November 23, he went to Leisure Valley Park and interacted with a few people but didn’t find any potential victims. He later met a man in his late 20s who worked at a construction site and offered him a drink from the bottle he was carrying. “Both of them finished a bottle of whisky and Razi then started pretending that he was under the influence of alcohol and stabbed the man in the neck, chest and stomach. He left him bleeding and walked out of the park,” said Sangwan adding that the body is yet to be identified.
Razi also carried a water bottle with him everywhere -- to wash his hands after killing people. He would invariably revisit the scene of the crime, police added.
On November 24, Razi met a security guard in Sector 40, befriended him, and offered him a drink. After several drinks, Razi stabbed the guard in the chest and stomach. He took out the guard’s wallet, mobile phone and shoes, and fled. The killing was in a park in a green belt, police said. The deceased was identified as Akhilesh Kumar, a security guard of a private company who was deployed in Sector 40.
On November 25, Razi went to Sector 47 searching for his next victim; he found one sleeping in an open ground used to store pipes. Police said the area is right in front of the state vigilance office in Sector 47. “He smoked a joint and had some drinks with the man,” said Sangwan. Then, he stabbed the man five times,separated the head from the body and walked with the severed head to Kanhai village.
He apparently told the police that he wanted to frame a friend of his for the murder. “So I threw the head near his room and returned to Sector 29 and slept that night,” Razi allegedly said to the police.
The police control room received a call about a headless body, later identified as that of Rakesh Kumar of Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh. The victim’s Aadhaar card was found lying near the body.
A special team was formed to arrest the criminal.
KK Rao, commissioner of police, said that there have been at least 20 murder cases registered in the past three months, with some not being solved yet. “He has been involved in a few cases in Delhi but we are yet to recover any details. We are coordinating with the Delhi police and a team will be sent to find out more about his past and murder cases reported from the close vicinity of where he worked.”
Razi was produced before a court on Friday, which sent him to police remand for three days.
