Wadala boy’s killer confesses to 7 more murders, 3 after he jumped parole

MUMBAI: The 39-year-old man arrested from New Delhi in connection with the sexual assault and murder of a 12-year-old boy from Wadala in January this year murdered at least seven other persons including his wife and stepdaughter, he told the police. Three of the murders were committed in Mumbai after he jumped parole during the Covid pandemic and a search is on to locate the bodies of the remaining victims, said police.
The case came to light when the 12-year-old son of a fish-seller in Wadala went missing on January 28. The following day, local residents caught the accused, Bipul Shikari, with whom the boy was last seen and took him to the Wadala Truck Terminus police station. But Shikari fled from the spot under the pretext of washing his face. On March 4, the mutilated body of the boy was found amidst the mangroves near Wadala, after which the police started looking for Shikari proactively.
“During the probe, we learned that Shikari worked as a pimp in red light areas in West Bengal, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh and he had murdered his wife in Sonagachi (West Bengal) in April 2012, for which he was convicted in 2016. We also learned that he was released on bail during the pandemic but never returned to jail to serve his remaining term,” said a police officer. Shikari had killed his two-year-old step-daughter from his wife’s first marriage before killing her, he told the police.
“The step-daughter disagreed with the relationship between her mother and Shikari, so he killed her. He also confessed to being part of a gang in Kalyani in Nadia district of West Bengal prior to this, when he killed three other persons,” said a police officer.
After Shikari jumped parole during the pandemic, he moved to Mumbai with the help of his friend Raju Mandal, who also joined him and the duo took up residence in Wadala. “Initially, Shikari used to work as a watchman at a construction site in Wadala. Later, he started stealing iron and steel from different construction sites and made around ₹2,000-3,000 per day,” said the police officer.
In December 2023, when Shikari and Mandal had an argument during a drinking session, Mandal threatened that he would tell the police about Shikari jumping parole. “This angered Shikari so he killed him and dumped his body in a nullah near Bhakti Park in Wadala,” said the police officer. Mandal’s phone had been switched off since December 29 and a missing case was registered against him in West Bengal, the officer added.
Shikari, the police said, confessed to killing another 12-year-old boy in Wadala who allegedly stole from his stock of scrap metal looted from construction sites in the city. This was in addition to the sexual assault and murder of the 12-year-old boy in Wadala on January 28 his year.
Police have registered a kidnapping case each for the two minor boys and are trying to gather evidence. “We are trying to locate the bodies of two more victims he killed in Mumbai and have sought help from a person who has assisted us in other murder cases. He said the bodies may have been dumped in two nullahs, so we hired 40 local youngsters to look for them, but failed to find anything,” the police officer said. More expert help would be sought to unearth the bodies, he said. Shikari would be booked under relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, he added.
Shikari was arrested by the Wadala Truck Terminus police from Garstin Bastion Road in Delhi, a red-light area, following a multi-state search spread over several months, said police.
“We had sent our teams to Delhi, Uttarakhand, Jammu Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Haryana, Punjab and Tamil Nadu and were searching for Shikari since January this year. We had information that he had earlier worked as a pimp in various red-light areas in Delhi, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh and we had started developing sources in these areas,” said deputy commissioner of police (zone IV) Prashant Kadam.