Chandrakanth Sharma with wife Harsha and son Monto after their arrest. Picture courtesy Bangalore News Photos

Bangalore, Jan. 18: A balding, plump and genial 48-year-old, Chandrakanth Sharma gives you only one reason not to consider him the ideal neighbour. He claims to have murdered 21 people, all of them acquaintances.

If that is true, he ranks high on the list of India’s serial killers but so far, Bangalore police have evidence only about one victim. The decaying, mutilated body of Sharma’s landlord Raghavan was found in a gutter 180km from Bangalore early this week.

But the real estate dealer says he committed 20 others across Maharashtra between 1978 and 1981 before marrying and moving to Bangalore.

Sharma claims to have killed for gain or to avoid settling debts while being involved in various illegal businesses in Mumbai, Aurangabad, Nashik and Pune. He says he has used swords, knives and chemicals, overdosed victims with chloroform or laced their drinks with sulphuric acid, and thrown some of the bodies into the sea.

Officers say they do not doubt his sanity. “We are in touch with Maharashtra police to confirm the cases. He also claims to have cheated scores of people out of huge sums in real estate deals made with fake documents,” deputy commissioner of police Alok Kumar said.

Sharma has told the police he had plotted the “21st murder” with wife Harsha and son Monto, a 21-year-old college dropout. The family had allegedly forged ownership documents for the house, struck a deal to sell it for Rs 1.5 crore and taken an advance of Rs 50 lakh — so Raghavan had to be killed.

So the Sharmas invited the landlord home on January 10 on the pretext of paying rent – outstanding for months -- and strangled him, DCP Kumar said. They drove to Tamil Nadu and partially burnt the body, mutilating the face, and dumped it in a gutter.

Officers said that on their way back, Sharma asked his wife and son not to worry and boasted that Raghavan was his “victim number 21”.

Raghavan’s son filed a missing complaint and told police Sharma had given evasive replies when asked about his father. Officers questioned the tenant on January 12 but let him go.

However, they kept watch on the family and after discovery of the body, detained them. All three were arrested today – the wife and son for conspiracy -- which led to Sharma’s “confessions”.

Some of his stories are bizarre. While staying in Mumbai’s Andheri, Sharma says, he learnt that a gangster, Salim, had sent his men to kill him. So he blew up Salim by pouring an “inflammable material” into his petrol tank when his car stopped at a traffic junction.

Sharma says he murdered 18 victims himself and three with the help of hired killers. He has given the police a list of his “victims”, mentioning name, place, method and serial number – except numbers five to nine, who are unnamed. He says he had hacked these five to death during communal riots in Pune.

Maharashtra additional director-general of police Sanjeev Dayal and Mumbai joint commissioner Rakesh Maria said Bangalore police had sent no formal request for help in investigating these cases.

Aurangabad police chief Uddhav Kamble echoed them. Officers in Pune said that perhaps Bangalore police would send a team to verify Sharma’s “confessions”.

The Telegraph’s own efforts threw up doubt in one case. Sharma’s serial No. 4 is “Amar, owner of hotel Amrapaali, Pune”.

Dayanand Shetty, owner of Amrapali Veg Restaurant in Pune’s Ferguson College Road, said: “There is no Amar in my family. I have been involved in managing the hotel since it was opened by my family in 1976, and no murder has been reported.”

No other hotel or restaurant with a similar name could be located in Pune.

DCP Kumar said Sharma had started out as a photographer in Nashik and moved to Bangalore in the early 1980s. During the real estate boom three-four years ago, he bought and sold property for crores of rupees, often using forged papers.

“He says he cheated several persons out of at least Rs 15 crore. We are yet to look into the cheating cases.”

With inputs from Satish Nandgaonkar in Mumbai