India’s most notorious serial killer and rapist “Psycho Shankar” slit his throat on Tuesday and bled to death at Parappan Aagrahara high security prison on the outskirts of Bengaluru.
M Jaishankar, 38, was serving 10-year sentence in a case related to trespass, rape and murder. He was notorious for raping and killing women in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
According to police, a constable on night patrol found Jaishankar bleeding following which he was rushed to the jail hospital for treatment. As his condition deteriorated, he was shifted to Victoria Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday morning.
Reports said Jaishankar used a shaving blade, which he borrowed from a jail barber, to slit his throat.
The life story of the dreaded criminal inspired the making of Kannada film Psycho Shankra and gave him the nickname of “Psycho Shankar”.
Jaishankar was accused in more than three dozen cases of rape and murder in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. He committed eight rapes and 12 murders in Tamil Nadu alone. In Karnataka, he preyed upon women mainly in Bijapur, Davangere, Chitradurga and Tumkur districts.
Jaishankar belonged to Salem district of Tamil Nadu and was a trucker by profession. Earlier his alleged targets were highway prostitutes. Jaishankar was arrested by the Tamil Nadu Police in October 2009 for rape and murder of a woman constable and sent to Coimbatore Central Prison. He managed to escape from police custody while returning from a court hearing in Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu, in March 2011. Two days later, constable Chinnaswamy, who was tasked with escorting Jaishankar, committed suicide.
Jaishankar was re-arrested from Bijapur in Karnataka two months later, but by then he had raped and killed two more women. Following his arrest, he was lodged at the Parappana Agrahara Jail in Bengaluru. In September 2013, Jaishankar abortively tried an audacious prison break by scaling 30-feet high walls. In the process he fell and damaged his spine. He was virtually immobile since then.
According to prison officials, Jaishankar managed to get the blade from a barber in the prison on Monday. Jaishankar had been kept in an isolated cell as he was a threat to other inmates. The jurisdictional Parappana Agrahara police have registered a case of unnatural death. Enquiries revealed that Jaishankar was being treated for depression.
Between 2008 and 2011, 15 cases of rape and murder were registered against him in Chennai, Dharmapuri, Hosur, Salem, Thirupathur, Bengaluru, Chitradurga, Hiriyuru, Kaduru, Monakalmuru and Tumakuru police station areas.
Jaishankar began his crime spree with rape and murder of a 45-year-old woman near Hosur in July 2009. The police launched a massive manhunt for him after he was accused of brutally raping and murdering a police constable in Tamil Nadu in August 2009. By the time he was arrested in October, he was already accused of 13 murders.
