HT This Day: April 7, 1934 -- Terrible record of mystery murderer
Hunted by the Police for seven years to answer a charge of murder, Gulam Hussain, a middle-aged Muslim, who was described as the “Jack the Ripper of Hyderabad” has at last been run to earth by the Police of Osmanabad District, where he is standing his trial before the Divisional Magistrate of Latur.
Hunted by the Police for seven years to answer a charge of murder, Gulam Hussain, a middle-aged Muslim, who was described as the “Jack the Ripper of Hyderabad” has at last been run to earth by the Police of Osmanabad District, where he is standing his trial before the Divisional Magistrate of Latur.
The tale of Hussain’s exploits, narrated before the Magistrate, was of a succession of eleven murders, the victims being women in all cases. These were committed by him during the past seven years, during which period he had managed to escape the police net.
He worked with the thoroughness of ‘Jack the Ripper’ appearing from nowhere and disappearing as mysteriously, leaving no traces behind. But, unlike that notorious character, he operated, in broad daylight, generally between the hours of two and four in the afternoon and added assault and robbery to homicidal acts. As is result of his exploits, girls of tender age and old women - alike lived in continuous dread.
Taste of Blood
Hussain, according to the prosecution, first struck in the latter part of 1927, when a girl, the daughter of an agriculturist in a village in Osmanabad district, was discovered dead in the stable with her throat cut, and the ornaments from her person wrenched. Shortly thereafter, two more outrages similar in every particular were reported from the adjoining villages.
A hue and cry ensued and the perpetrator went under cover for nothing was heard about him for a long time, when suddenly Hussain reappeared in the adjoining Bir district and in quick succession added three more victims to the list, including an elderly woman. The police hunt was resumed with redoubled energy, although they were handicapped for want of a proper description of the murderer, who appears to have worked silently and struck swiftly.
Police Baffled
Again the police were baffled but the strictest orders were issued to the State Police for the utmost vigilance over the movements of strangers, suspected to be capable of crime. For more than two years thereafter, nothing was heard about these crimes and the terrorised women and girls were beginning to forget the gruesome exploits of the mysterious murderer, when the same hand struck again - this time selecting the Bidar district for the scene of his operations. In the adjacent villages, three women were brutally murdered in three months the circumstances of their deaths leaving no room for doubt as to what hands had committed them. But the perpetrator once more totally disappeared and till December of last year, he was not heard of. He reappeared in Kulgapur, Babalgaon in the Osmanabad district, the scene of his first operations and two successive deaths accounted for the tenth and eleventh victim.
These, however, put a finish to his homicidal career for the alleged murderer Gulam Hussain, shortly thereafter was run to earth in Latur village and arrested. The capture was as prosaic as the career was terrifying for Hussain was arrested on suspicion for loitering. He quietly gave himself up to the police, but subsequent investigation, according to the prosecutian, led to the discovery in Hussain’s possession of property, stated to have belonged to some of the murdered women.