MEERUT: The recent arrest of a suspected serial killer by Bareilly police has come under intense scrutiny after people noticed a striking similarity between a previously released sketch of the accused man and his latest photograph. The eerie likeness — down to matching shirt patterns, fabric creases, and facial shadows — has sparked widespread scepticism about the legitimacy of investigation in the case which spanned 14 months from June 2023 until July this year and involved gruesome murders of nine middle-aged women.
A post on X that went out pointing to the coincidence had by Saturday evening notched up over 10 lakh views.
Police defended their investigation. Bareilly SSP Anurag Arya, who led the operation, told TOI, “This was a comprehensive chase involving collaboration with villagers to identify the culprit. We received numerous leads, tracked over 180 suspects, and conducted many interrogations. We collected pictures of suspects while monitoring their movements and set them aside after ruling out their involvement, eventually zeroing in on three persons.”
Police, however, going by their account, seem to have released the sketches of the suspects though they also had real photographs of the three men. Arya explained: “The sketches were shown to hundreds of villagers, and most of them pointed to the sketch of a man called Kuldeep…” He said the photograph used to create the sketch was indeed taken when the suspects were called in for questioning at the police station. “The purpose of releasing sketches was to validate the feedback from our tracking and interrogation teams with input from the locals”.
Fuelling the controversy is a growing theory that UP police might have arrested 35-year-old Kuldeep Gangwar well before they released the sketch.
The arrest has been contested by Kuldeep’s brother, Raj Kumar, who has staunchly defended his sibling: “He’s a simple soul, incapable of such heinous crimes.”
A post on X that went out pointing to the coincidence had by Saturday evening notched up over 10 lakh views.
Police defended their investigation. Bareilly SSP Anurag Arya, who led the operation, told TOI, “This was a comprehensive chase involving collaboration with villagers to identify the culprit. We received numerous leads, tracked over 180 suspects, and conducted many interrogations. We collected pictures of suspects while monitoring their movements and set them aside after ruling out their involvement, eventually zeroing in on three persons.”
Police, however, going by their account, seem to have released the sketches of the suspects though they also had real photographs of the three men. Arya explained: “The sketches were shown to hundreds of villagers, and most of them pointed to the sketch of a man called Kuldeep…” He said the photograph used to create the sketch was indeed taken when the suspects were called in for questioning at the police station. “The purpose of releasing sketches was to validate the feedback from our tracking and interrogation teams with input from the locals”.
Fuelling the controversy is a growing theory that UP police might have arrested 35-year-old Kuldeep Gangwar well before they released the sketch.
The arrest has been contested by Kuldeep’s brother, Raj Kumar, who has staunchly defended his sibling: “He’s a simple soul, incapable of such heinous crimes.”
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