SALEM: Serial rapist and murderer M Jaishankar, who was involved in more than 30 rape cases and about 15 murders in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, committed suicide at the Parappanna Agrahara prison on the outskirts of Bengaluru early on Tuesday. Jaishankar, based on whom Kannada movie ‘Psycho Shankar ’ was made in 2017, slit his throat using a broken shaving blade.Some inmates noticed Shankar lying in a pool of blood around 2.15am and alerted officials. The prison duty doctor examined him and advised officials to rush him to a government hospital. They shifted Shankar to Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru where doctors declared him dead around 5.10am.While serving his sentence, Jaishankar escaped from prison after scaling the high security inner and outer walls using a bamboo pole and a bedsheet. He was rearrested by the Bengaluru police near Kudligate in Bengaluru on September 5, 2013.The prison authorities have ordered a detailed inquiry into the death. Prison officials told the police that Jaishankar had stolen a piece of a shaving blade from a barber and kept it inside his shirt fold. They said no one saw him slitting his throat.M Ramkumar, who had killed Infosys employee S Swathi, 24, at the Nungambakkam railway station in Chennai, committed suicide by biting a live cable inside the Central Prison in Puzhal on September 19, 2016.M Shankar, alias Jaishankar, 41, a native of Kanniampatty in Edappadi, Salem district, became a truck driver after studying up to Class XII. During his stint as cleanercum-driver, he became fluent in Tamil, Kannada, Hindi.He was targeted by the police after he raped and murdered constable M Jayamani, 39, attached to the Kangeyam All-Woman Police Station on August 23, 2009. She was on bandobust duty at Perunamallur during the visit of the then deputy chief minister M K Stalin to Tirupur.“Jaishankar kidnapped and raped her before murdering her,” said a senior police officer who investigated the case. He said the body was found on September 19 near Sankari in Salem district.The Tirupur police launched the search for Jaishankar and arrested him on October 19, 2009. He was lodged in the Coimbatore central prison. During inquiry, Tirupur police came to know that Jaishankar was arrested earlier by Sankari police in a rape and murder case in 2008. “That was the first time he entered police records,” said another police official. Further inquiries revealed that he was involved in as many as 13 rape and murder cases and seven rape cases in Tirupur, Salem and Dharmapuri districts in 2008 and 2009.On March 17, 2011, Jaishankar was taken to the Dharmapuri Fast Track Court in connection with a murder case. The next day, armed reserve police constables attached to the Coimbatore district police M Chinnasamy and Rajavelu were escorting him back to Coimbatore around 9.30 pm. When they reached the Salem bus stand from Dharmapuri, Jaishankar gave them the slip. On March 19, Chinnasamy shot himself out of a sheer sense of shame.Since his escape, Jaishankar allegedly raped and murdered six women in Bellary in Karnataka and killed a man and a child in Dharmapuri district. Finally, the Karnataka police arrested him near Bijapur on May 4, 2011. Police officials who probed the murder cases said Jaishankar would target only lone women. “He sexually assaulted them and fled after murdering them,” they said.