New Delhi: Serial rapist and murderer ‘Cyanide’ Mohan Kumar was on Thursday sentenced to death in the rape-and-murder of an anganwadi worker in a south Karnataka village.

The VI additional district and sessions judge Syedunnisa had convicted Mohan of rape and murder on Tuesday (October 22) and pronounced the sentence on Thursday. Mohan killed the anganwadi worker, who hails from Balepuni village of Bantwal taluk in Dakshina Kannada district, in October 2005.

The death sentence will be executed if the Karnataka high court confirms it. According to The Hindu, the present case is the 17th being tried against serial killer and the fourth in which he was awarded the death sentence. The Karnataka high court overturned the death sentence in two of the previous cases, reducing the sentences to life imprisonment and five years of rigorous imprisonment. In the third case, the HC confirmed the death sentence. He has been convicted in all 17 cases, while three others are pending.

Reports said that the death sentence was awarded for the murder conviction, while ten years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000 was imposed for the charge of abduction. Mohan was also sentenced to seven years imprisonment and awarded a fine of Rs 5,000 for the offence of rape, which would run simultaneously. The judge also ordered the government to compensate the victim’s younger sister through the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA).

Mohan who is currently lodged in the Hindalga Central Prison in Belagavi, was present through a video conference when the sentence was pronounced, The Hindu reported. The prosecution said that Mohan lured the victim to Bengaluru before administering her cyanide.

While the victim was cremated as an unidentified person, a case of unnatural death was also registered. Mohan confessed to the murder after his September 2009 arrest.

Suspected in at least 32 murders

After ‘Cyanide’ Mohan’s arrest, police suspected that he is involved in as many as 32 murders. All of his victims were women and killed after being given pills laced with cyanide.

According to The News Minute, Mohan would lure the women with the promise of marriage, rape them and then take them to the nearest bus stand. At the bus stand, he would ask the women to take a pill, purportedly a contraceptive, that was laced with cyanide. He would direct the women to go to a restroom to take the pill because it would make them sick.

Several women were found dead in restrooms across Karnataka. Though police registered cases of unnatural death, they were not seen as connected events. According to reports, the deaths were declared suicides. Only after Mohan’s arrest, they were reclassified as murders.