An inter-state 'serial killer' accused of 34 murders appears to be turning a new life in prison in Madhya Pradesh by turning to religion.

Adesh Khamra, 52, is an alleged serial who mostly killed truck drivers. He is also accused of robbery and selling goods in trucks as well as the trucks in their entirety. However, now he appears to be taking a refuge in religious scriptures and motivational books in jail.?

However, a police officer maintained that Khamra, formerly a tailor, has "a criminal bent of mind". He was arrested in 2018.?

The recent serial murders of four security guards in Madhya Pradesh and a suspected murder of a fifth person by a teenager has brought back memories of Khamra. The police claimed that Khamra admitted to committing murders after his arrest in 2018 but was acquitted in one case for lack of evidence.

"In my observation, Adesh Khamra has become a person unaffected by any circumstances. No emotion, happiness or sadness, affects him. He is educated and spends most of his time reading religious and motivational books though he had been a vicious criminal," a senior official told PTI while talking about behavioural changes noticed in him in prison.

The official, who was posted at the Bhopal Central Jail till recently, said Khamra has been kept with criminals facing ?murder charges and such inmates remain under constant monitoring of prison authorities.

“Khamra has been scrupulously following all rules of the jail. It seems he is aware law will catch up with him for his crimes," the official said.

The jail official said the wife and son of the alleged serial killer occasionally visit the prison to meet him.

Nabbing Khamra, a tailor by profession in Mandideep, a small industrial town some 20 km away from Madhya Pradesh's capital Bhopal, was not an easy task for the police.

"After a case of robbery and murder of a truck driver in the Bilkhiriya area in the outskirts of Bhopal was registered, we found clues about Khamra’s involvement and started chasing him. We followed the truck he had looted, through mobile interception, to Sultanganj in Uttar Pradesh, but when a police team reached there, he turned back for his home in Mandideep," said Bittu Sharma, now Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) in Bhopal.

She added that the police team tracked him down to Misrod in Bhopal after following him for 16-18 hours. She was then-city superintendent of police (CSP).

"Initially, we had no clue he was involved in heinous criminal activities. But his involvement in 34 case of murders were revealed during the interrogation. The police corroborated the stories narrated by him with officials of other states," said Sharma.

She further said, "He has a criminal bent of mind. He went to jail in an attempt to murder case where he met another criminal Paramjeet, who showed him the way to earn easy money by looting trucks and selling the goods being transported in them along with the vehicles."

Explaining Khamra's methods of crimes, Sharma said that he along with his accomplice used to narrate sob stories to truck drivers to get into their vehicles and would show urgency to reach home, following which they would befriend drivers during their travels and would eventually offer sweets laced with sedatives to drivers and helpers. After sedatives would show their effect, Khamra and his accomplice would kill drivers and helpers by strangling them and then dump their bodies near culverts or secluded place, according to Sharma.

She said police traced cases of murder committed by him between 2009-18 in various states and bodies of victims were found at locations mentioned by him. She added that while 12-14 murders were committed in Madhya Pradesh, the rest were committed in Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh.

Sharma said after looting trucks, they would sell goods in them in the market and used to completely change the look of the vehicles before selling them entirely or their parts in West Bengal, Nagaland and in some cases in Nepal also.

Mandideep's former Nagar Parishad President Badri Singh Chouhan, a neighbour of Khamra, said the undertrial’s family members would often get into fights with others.?

"The members of Khamra's extended family were of aggressive nature and used to be involved in fights," said Chouhan, adding that Khamra was running a tailoring shop and lived like a normal man, but committed heinous crimes outside the town's limits.

Atik Ahmed, a journalist based in Mandideep, said there was nothing suspicious about Khamra before he came into limelight and there was hardly any criminal record against him in the local police station. He added that the family of Khamra has now shifted to Bhopal.?

Ahmed further said those close to Khamra say he used to financially help others from the money he made from his criminal activities.?

(With PTI inputs)