The officers investigating Rahul Karamveer Jat are in the dark about his locations between November 14, when he allegedly raped and killed a college student near a railway station in Gujarat, and November 19, when the body of a Bally resident was found on the Katihar Express in Howrah.

Rahul, who police said is a serial killer, has been accused of murdering tabla player Soumitra Chatterjee, whose body was found in a coach of the Katihar Express for the specially abled.

The lack of information about Rahul’s whereabouts between November 14 and 19 has triggered suspicions about whether he had committed similar crimes during the period.

The Gujarat police, which arrested the 29-year-old on Sunday, said they were yet to track the complete route Rahul took after the rape and murder of a 19-year-old student near Udvada railway station on November 14, which is their primary case.

“We are depending on the CCTV footage of all railway stations along the route he might have taken from Udvada to Howrah. The route is still not clear. We are also communicating with officers in Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan,” said an officer of the Gujarat police.

The superintendent of police of Gujarat’s Valsad district, Karanraj Vaghela, told Metro they are trying to piece together the sequence of events just before and after the crime near Udvada station.

The Bengal police could track Rahul’s location with the help of Chatterjee’s mobile phone which the accused had allegedly stolen.

“Chatterjee had boarded the train in Katihar but it is not clear where Rahul had boarded the train or where the victim was killed,” an officer of the Bengal police said.

By the time the railway police found the body and started tracking the victim’s phone, it had been switched off. Its location was tracked down to Andhra Pradesh the next day and Tamil Nadu a day later, the police said.

The railway police in Bengal are scanning the entire stretch running parallel to
the train tracks between
Howrah and Salem in Tamil Nadu — the route along which the tower location of Chatterjee’s phone was tracked after his murder.

“We are trying to recover Chatterjee’s bag. We are scanning even the bushes along the railway tracks,” said a senior officer of the state police.

A team from the Bengal GRP reached Gujarat on Wednesday afternoon and is likely to question the accused, who is in the custody of the Valsad police for 10 days.