In a gruesome incident, a man from Bihar killed nine people in Telangana’s Warangal district last week to cover up the murder of a woman, he was in a relationship with, the police said on Monday.

Cracking the mystery behind the nine bodies recovered from an open well at Gorrekunta village near Warangal town on May 21 and 22, the police arrested Sanjay Kumar Yadav (24), who confessed to committing the gruesome crime to hide the murder of a woman with whom he had live-in relationship.

Revealing the details of the macabre murders, Warangal Police Commissioner V Ravinder told a news conference that the accused killed nine persons, including six members of one family, by mixing sleeping pills in their food and then throwing them one by one into a nearby well.

After sedating the victims by lacing their food with sleeping pills, the accused put each person in a gunny bag, dragged them one by one and threw them into the well, about 100 metres away from a godown of a gunny bag making unit where the family of a migrant worker from West Bengal and two Bihari youth were living. Another migrant from Tripura, who was also present in the building, was also killed.

The bodies of Mohammed Maqsood Alam (55), his wife Nisha (48), both natives of West Bengal working in the gunny bag manufacturing unit for the last 20 years, their daughter Bushra Khatoon (22) and Bushra’s three-year-old son were found in the well on May 21.

The next day after emptying the well, the police found the bodies of Maqsood’s sons Shabaaz Alam (20) and Sohail Alam (18), Bihari workers Sriram Kumar Shah (26), Shyam Kumar Shah (21) and a migrant from Tripura, Mohammed Shakeel (40).

Investigations revealed that Yadav, who was also working at the gunny bag unit, developed a relationship with Nisha’s niece Rafiqa (37), who had come from West Bengal with three children after separation from her husband and was employed in the same factory.

Yadav had taken a room on rent and was living with her. Police investigations revealed that Rafiqa had recently admonished him for trying to sexually exploit her daughter.

The accused then hatched a plan to murder Rafiqa and informed Maqsood’s family that he is taking her to West Bengal to talk to her elders for marriage. They boarded the Garib Rath train to Visakhapatnam on March 6. During the journey, he bought butter milk and after mixing sleeping pills, served it to Rafiqa. After she fell asleep, he strangulated her and threw the body from the train near Nidadavole in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.

The accused got down from the train at Rajahmundry and returned to Warangal. When Nisha and her husband enquired about Rafiqa, he said she had reached her village and would come back later.

When Maqsood’s family threatened to approach the police, he hatched a plan to murder them all.

As May 20 was Maqsood’s son Shabaaz’s birthday, he came to their house in the evening and mixed sleeping pills in the food prepared at home.

As two Bihari youth living in the same building had seen him at Maqsood’s house, he went to their room and mixed sedatives in their food to wipe out the evidence.

Shakeel, a native of Tripura who had come to Maqsood’s house at the latter’s invitation, too became Yadav’s victim.

The police commissioner said the CCTV footage of the accused leaving his house on the evening of May 20 and returning the next morning provided the vital clue to the investigating team.

“We have no evidence that there is any other person involved in the crime,” the police chief said, dismissing reports that four people were picked up in connection with the case.

Meanwhile, six teams were deployed to investigate the case.

Police Commissioner V Ravinder has also assured that Yadav will get maximum punishment once all the evidence is collected.