NEW DELHI: Police probing the triple murder case in Peeragarhi said arrested occultist Kamruddin was suspected to be involved in at least eight murders.According to police, the occultist arrested for allegedly poisoning and killing Randhir (76), Shiv Naresh (42) and Laxmi (40), whose bodies were found in an abandoned car near the Peeragarhi flyover on Feb 8, revealed a calculated modus operandi that revolved around ritualistic deception.Police said the accused allegedly asked clients to send photographs of young women and girls as part of occult rituals and promised them a “dhanvarsha”, or sudden windfall of wealth, claiming a ‘djinn’ would establish “physical contact” through a young woman in their family. Multiple such photographs were found on a victim’s phone, showing women posing with handwritten personal details. Investigators believe these images were circulated across groups linked to the accused.

An officer said, “He would give detailed instructions on how the girls should look, their height, hair length, skin type and conventional attractiveness. If the ritual failed, he would highlight minor flaws as the reason.”The cops are questioning a suspected chemical supplier in Firozabad and tracing the source of the lethal mixture of aluminium phosphide and sleeping pills that he gave to the victims. Police said Kamruddin used elaborate tricks to convince people of his supernatural abilities. He would perform a “money trick,” holding a shawl and placing a Rs 500 note under it, then making the cloth move in a way that created the illusion of multiplying cash. In one case, he claimed to cure kidney stones: he placed red powder over a patient’s body, had him indicate the site of pain and then pretended the powder was blood after a “surgery”, claiming to have performed a procedure without stitches, an officer said. Police are trying to trace where he had learnt these practices. Investigators said he used to ask clients to switch their phones to flight mode during meetings and avoided CCTV-covered locations. Police could trace his Loni residence because Laxmi had shared the location of his house with Naresh. A small note containing a “djinn kalma”, believed to be part of the ritualistic practices, was found in Naresh’s pocket.Police said Kamruddin was also linked to a double murder in Uttar Pradesh last year and a 2014 case in Dholpur, Rajasthan, where a man allegedly killed his wife on Kamruddin’s instructions. His confessions about two more killings are being corroborated.