lucknow

Updated: Oct 05, 2019 13:52 IST

A 33-year-old man absconding after allegedly killing three people in Uttar Pradesh’s Bijnor district shot himself dead while trying to escape late on Friday night, police said on Saturday.

Ashwani Kumar alias ‘Jonny Dada’, who was reportedly on the run after the murders, had posted multiple text messages, Tik Tok videos and photographs on his Facebook wall, saying he would harm people who he believed had insulted him.

Kumar allegedly shot dead local Bharatiya Janata Party leader Bhim Singh Kashyap’s son Chandra Bhushan alias Rahul, 24, and his cousin Krishna alias Lala, 25, after inviting them for a drink in Bijnor’s Badhapur on September 26.

As the police launched a manhunt for him, Kumar allegedly shot dead a former air hostess Nikita Sharma, 27, after barging into her house on September 30. He easily sneaked into the forest area of Daulatabad after killing Sharma and remained elusive since then.

The police had deployed Provincial Armed Constabulary and Rapid Action Force for combing the forest area but he remained untraceable.

Bijnor’s superintendent of police (SP), Sanjiv Tyagi, confirmed that Jonny Dada shot himself dead with a revolver he was carrying while travelling in the state-run bus to Uttarakhand’s Dehradun in an attempt to escape from Bijnor.

Tyagi said an extensive checking was being conducted when a police team intercepted the roadways bus on the highway in Badhapur area and spotted a suspicious person sitting on the front seat adjacent to the driver at around 12.45am on Saturday.

Tyagi said the man had his face covered with a handkerchief and whipped out a revolver when a police constable asked him to uncover himself. He said the man shot himself on his right temple before the constable could do anything.

“The dead man was later identified as Jonny Dada, who was wanted in three sensational killings held in separate parts of Bijnor recently,” Tyagi said.

The alleged killer carried a reward of Rs 50,000 for his capture and a recommendation was sent to senior police officials to increase the money to Rs 1 lakh.

A senior police official privy to the investigation said Jonny Dada’s aggressive TikTok videos posted on Facebook under the name of Aditya Rajpoot had created terror among those familiar to him in Bijnor.

“Everybody who had even a small dispute with him was suspecting himself to his next target,” the official, who did not want to be named, said.

The official said Jonny Dada said in his messages on social media that he was going to destroy everything. He said the police have also found several strange messages and videos posted on Facebook.

“When the social media messages posted by him were examined later, it all hinted about his alleged act of revenge and his plans to commit crimes,” he said.

Some of his posts read ‘I will go for the kill if I am annoyed’, ‘Gussa ayega toh phir main maroonga’ and ‘Mujhe maut se zyada apni izzat pyari hai’ and many others. Another message read, ‘I am going to leave this life’,” the official said.