Denton Examiner, Audenshaw, Hooley Hill and Dukinfield Advertiser. — 1876-06-24 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

SIXTEEN MURDERS IN MYR YEARS. The Bombay Gazette gives some particulars of an extraordinary affair which is creating a good deal of excitement in the central provinces of India and Berar. It is the apprehension of a professional poisoner who by his own confession has been guilty of sixteen murders within the last four years. The man is a Mahometes of the Borah class, Kandur by name, a native of the town of Soonvale in Oojeen, not far from Wore. Kandur is a well-to-do man, about 40 years of age, and his father possesses some property in Soonvale. Over eleven years of his life have been spent in gaol, commencing in 1881, when he was committed for theft. In 1872 there began a series of crimes which baffled the police of both the Central Provinces and Bomar till about April, 1874, when theyceased. Carteandbullocks started on journeys from Khundwa, Nursingpore, Bholanpore, Pathore,Nandoora, and other places, but never returned. More than once the dead body of the missing driver was found by the side of a lonely path in the jungle, but no far advanced in decomposition as to be totally unrecognisable; and for some time it was impossible to say that the persons whose bodies were so found had not died from natural causes. These mysterious occurrences, after ceasing for a year, began again early last year. At length it was noticed that Kandur Borah was the name given by various parties as that of the person who had hired a cart which had disappeared; and this clue being followed out, a circular was issued for the arrest of a man answering to the name and description of Kandur Borah. Before long the man wanted was arrested at Kamptee, and readily recognised by the relatives of more than one carter whom ho had taken away ou ass ill-fated journey. At the time of his arrest he had arsenic on his person. The important part of the story now began to come out. When the Borah saw that his conviction was clear beyond all hope of escape, he made a clean breast of his crimes, and informed upon two men as his accomplices. He made a formal confession, according to which he took to systematic poisoning as a means of livelihood as soon as he came out of gaol in 1872. Kandur's plan of operation was to go to a town and give out that he wanted a re• spectable-looking cart to take him to a distant place to see his relatives or on business of some kind. He always selected a good cart and good bullocks, the property of a man of a better class, who was likely to carry money about with him, and he made the fatal mistake of giving his correct name at every place he went to. Having started on his pretended I journey of twenty, thirty, or even fifty miles, he chose some quiet part of the road to administer arsenic to his unsuspecting companion, the driver. This, if the I latter was a Mahometan, he would have no difficulty in doing, as the two would probably take their I evening meal together; and if the driver was a Hindoo, the murderer either offered him some poisoned sweetmeat or watched an opportunity to sprinkle arsenic over the flour the poor man was about to make into chuppatties. The villain then composedly looked on while his victim first complained of pain, then became too ill to drive his cart, and finally laid down on the roadside and died in agony. He then stripped the body of 'whatever valuables there were upon it, and either threw it down in the jungle or buried it under the ground, and taking the dead man's place upon the cart, drove to some town or village where he was not likely to arouse suspicion, and disposed of the turnout for, say, fifty or sixty rupees. In his confession Kandur relates the particulars of thirteen murders he thus committed in Borer and the Central Provinces, and several of these are eases that have baffled the police for two or three years past. The affair is one of the most serious that :lave come to light in the history of crimb in India. by I since the euppression of Thuggemsm. Both I  Tint