Journalist Dhirendra Singh Murder: Who Killed Him and How Did He Die? – The Diary of a Serial Killer, the second instalment of Netflix’s Indian Predator real-crime documentary series, vastly improves on the first. The Butcher of Delhi, which was just released, was either blatantly unaware of its own flaws or simply uninterested in them. Even though a completely separate team created it, nothing about it gave me any reason to be confident in this one.
Raja Kolander, an accused cannibal who has killed more than 15 people, will be the main focus of this season. When he murdered a journalist, his diary came to light and revealed his prior crimes in horrifying detail.
The narrative begins in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh (then known as Allahabad). On December 14, 2001, Dhirendra Singh, a journalist for the Hindi daily Aaj, vanished. Keep reading the whole story to find out who abducted and killed him.
Must Read: Where is Serial Killer Raja Kolander (Ram Niranjan) Now?
How Did Dhirendra Singh Die?
Dhirendra (or Dheerendra) Singh, the youngest of four sons, born into a labour-class family in the village of Bairi in Uttar Pradesh, India, learned early on that perseverance is the key to success. He chose to work as a journalist right out of college (despite having a degree in the sciences), and thanks to his hard work, enthusiasm for community service, and network of contacts, he quickly rose through the ranks. He had already made a name for himself at a Hindi daily newspaper called Aaj by the time he was in his early 30s, which is why everyone was absolutely perplexed by his unexpected disappearance.
Dhirendra, who never skipped work without warning, had told his coworkers that he would be absent on December 14 due to duties in the village. Although he never even made it back home, that tragic morning was the last time he was seen or heard from alive; as a result, a formal missing person’s report was filed around the 17th. Tracing his last known moves was similarly a bust until his assailant revealed he had killed the journalist. He had a cellphone, but it was off. His bike was nowhere to be located.
According to thecinemaholic, Local authorities had discovered Dhirendra’s naked and headless remains the following morning in a woodland area in the Madhya Pradesh district of Rewa, close to Jabalpur. But of course, it wasn’t until the whole story broke on December 18 that he was finally recognized; his severed head was later found in Madhya Pradesh’s Bansagar Lake. It was discovered that Dhirendra had been shot in the head before being released in Rewa, where his head was cut off to prevent identification.
Who Killed Dhirendra Singh and Why?
Ram Niranjan, also known as Raja Kolander, a native of Uttar Pradesh, and his brother-in-law Vaksharaj Kol, are the two people accountable for the horrifyingly outrageous murder of Dhirendra. According to the Netflix production, one of the last calls the journalist made from his cellphone was to the former’s landline (on December 16), which immediately connected him to the situation.
Tripathi’s team managed to locate Singh’s mobile phone, from which a call was placed to a landline on the evening of December 16, even though phone monitoring methods were plainly not that advanced 20 years ago. This call was placed to a home in the Chheoki neighbourhood of Prayagraj, and the landline was owned by an intriguingly named woman named “Phoolan Devi” and her husband, Raja Kolander. Chheoki was in Naini, the industrial district that serves as Prayagraj’s counterpart.
Kolander formerly served as a driver and ad hoc employee at a government ordinance plant, while Phoolan Devi was a panchayat member in the area.
Singh’s inquiry and the police’s questioning eventually brought his team to a farmhouse near Naini. To put it mildly, the police discovered some surprising things around the property.
According to the documentary, someone noticed that Vaksharaj’s shoes were similar to Dhirendra’s shoes. Later, the police used all available means to discover the truth. Dhirendra’s missing smartphone was found in the back seat of the car they were driving. Vaksharaj eventually admitted that the deceased’s shoes belonged to him; suffice it to add that he had assisted the king in killing Dhirendra.
According to “Indian Predator,” the latter subsequently admitted to police that they had shot the journalist after warmly inviting him to his pig farm. However, they didn’t dispose of his body until that evening.
The truth is that Raja’s motivation was entirely self-preservation, despite his early claims that his actions were motivated by their fierce political conflicts and a secret relationship between Dhirendra and his wife. He ended the conversation before the reporter could even report on it because he allegedly recognized that the reporter had learned about his car theft and/or homicidal acts.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out so well for him since the ensuing investigations uncovered the terrible details of his criminal background as a suspected serial killer and cannibal. On November 30, 2012, Raja and Vaksharaj were found guilty of murder and given a life sentence after being detained on December 18, 2000.
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