INDIA:One of two suspects charged with murdering 17 people, mostly children, in an up-market suburb of India's capital New Delhi, has reportedly confessed to indulging in necrophilia with his victims and even eating their organs.
The revelations came after the accused duo were subjected to "narco-analysis" - including truth drugs, such as sodium penthanol, polygraph tests and brain mapping at a national forensic laboratory in Ahmedabad in western India.
During the profiling and the tests, the suspects were attached to sensors and asked a series of questions, police said. Official sources said the main suspect, Surender Koli, admitted the murders, claiming to have carried them out alone.
He allegedly said his wealthy businessman employer, Moninder Singh Pandher, also charged with the murders, was not aware of his activities in his high-class bungalow in Noida on Delhi's outskirts.
The outcome of the polygraph tests are not admissible as evidence in Indian courts and are used primarily to help police with their investigation.
The child murders have dominated the front pages of all newspapers and led radio and television news bulletins after the remains of 17 people, mostly children, were excavated on December 29th from a drain adjoining Mr Pandher's house.
Relatives of the victims, almost all of them poor migrant labourers or domestic servants, claim that for more than two years police ignored their repeated pleas to investigate the disappearance of some 40 children, aged between six and 12.
The resultant public outcry led to nine policemen being suspended for dereliction of duty.
"We complained about those two men, who have now been arrested, six months back. A severed hand was discovered in that drain, but the police wanted to hush up the case. They asked us not to tell anyone," said Gopal who claims the authorities did not take his young nephew's disappearance seriously.
Meanwhile, Mr Koli, from eastern India, told how he killed his 17 victims after luring them from the nearby poor neighbourhood by promising them chocolates, toys and other such inducements. He remembered the names of 15 of them, 11 of whom were girls.
Police are also investigating the possibility that the two suspects were involved in selling their victim's organs. An autopsy report said the bodies had been sliced with "butcher-like" precision. Mr Koli said his first victim was a four-year-old girl and he admitted trying to eat her liver.
Psychologists say he might have been trying to cure his "impotency" through such brutality.
His co-accused, however, is believed to have emerged from the narco-analysis tests merely as a "womaniser" who used Mr Koli as a pimp to find him prostitutes.
"Sahab [ master] did not know," Mr Koli was quoted as telling investigators. The murders he claimed were committed when Mr Pandher was away.
Mr Pandher's son, Karan, who studies in Canada, told reporters that his father was a model parent and should not be considered guilty before being given a fair trial.
"So far, my father has not been given a fair trial. Do not accuse him right now. He is just a suspect. He is not a monster. Come on, have a heart. He has a family. He has a son."