'Beer Man' now a suspect, samples sent for DNA test

MUMBAI: The Cuffe Parade police on Tuesday summoned Ravindra Kantrole, dubbed the 'Beer Man', for questioning and took his DNA and semen samples, which were sent to Kalina forensic laboratory on Wednesday.
The police said they were trying to ascertain if Kantrole was involved in the Cuffe Parade murders in which three girls, aged between two-and-a-half years and three, were found murdered between November last year and April.
Cops admit they have found no evidence implicating Kantrole and are exploring the possibility of his involvement as they have hit a dead end in the probe. Investigators have asked Kantrole, who was allowed to leave the police station on Tuesday evening, to "cooperate" with them in the investigation.
Kantrole, a Std X dropout, used to be a member of the Dashrath Rane gang of robbers. After a spate of killings rocked south Mumbai between October 2006 and February 2007, the police zeroed in on Kantrole as the prime suspect. Arrested by the Azad Maidan police in February 2007, he was dubbed the 'Beer Man' after the police found empty beer cans next to the bodies of some of the victims.
Kantrole was subjected to several forensic tests, including narcoanalysis polygraph testing, brain-electrical oscillation and brain mapping, in Bangalore. On the basis of his confession during these tests and some eyewitness accounts, a sessions court convicted Kantrole for one of the murders and sentenced him to life imprisonment in early 2009. His lawyer, Sushan Kanjuraman, filed an appeal in the high court and obtained an acquittal for Kantrole in September 2009. A division bench of Justice Bilal Nazki and Justice A R Joshi ruled that the forensic evidence compiled by the police was inadmissible in court.
"Kantrole has been living in the Azad Maidan area since his acquittal. The police keep a close tab on his activities, so it is unlikely he is involved. We have to rule out all angles and are treating him as a suspect due to his past," said an officer involved in the Cuffe Parade serial killing probe.