A 29-year-old truck driver, now an alleged serial killer wanted for rape and murder and robbery on trains and railway stations across India, has been accused by police of killing the Bally resident who was found dead in Howrah a few days ago in a Katihar Express compartment for the specially abled.

The Gujarat police had arrested the accused — identified as Rahul Karamveer Jat, alias Bholu, from Haryana — in connection with the rape and murder of a 19-year-old girl in their state.

The Bengal police said they came to know that Rahul had killed the Bally resident after tracking the phone of the deceased that was stolen from him.

Hours before his arrest on Sunday, the police said he had raped and murdered another woman on a train in Secunderabad, Telengana.

A tabla player named Soumitra Chatterjee who was travelling in the compartment for the specially abled of the Katihar Express was found dead on November 19 afternoon.

“When we found the body, his belongings — a bag and his mobile phone — were missing. We started tracing his mobile phone. On the night of the incident, the phone was switched off. The next day, the phone’s location was in Andhra Pradesh. It was Tamil Nadu the day after,” said Pushpa, the superintendent of railway police (SRP), Howrah.

The tower location of the phone was traced to various railway stations in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Following the pattern of the phone’s movement along railway tracks, it was found that the timings and the corresponding locations matched that of the Ernakulam Express, the Howrah SRP said.

The Bengal police received information on Monday that Chatterjee’s phone had been traced to an accused captured by the Gujarat police.

Additional director-general of police (CID) R. Rajasekaran said the accused was in the habit of moving around the country changing trains.

Officers of Valsad district police in Gujarat who were investigating the rape and murder of a 19-year-old college student near Udwada railway station found a bag containing clothes at the spot where the young woman’s body was found.

Officers of the Gujarat police said a man wearing the same clothes, and walking with a limp, was spotted on the footage of CCTV cameras of an adjoining railway station.

“Once the footage was available and the man’s face was clear, the photograph was widely circulated across all agencies in India, including the correctional homes in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan. A face recognition software at Lajpore Central Jail in Surat helped identify the suspect as Rahul Karamveer Jat, alias Bholu,” Karanraj Vaghela, superintendent of police, Valsad district, Gujarat, told The Telegraph on Tuesday.

From the records, the police learnt that the accused was in jail in 2018-19 and 2024 for truck theft and illegal arms trafficking in Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, another officer of the Gujarat police said.

Based on a tip-off about the movement of the accused, a joint operation was carried out by Vapi Railway Police and the Valsad district police and Rahul was arrested at Vapi in Gujarat on November 24.

“He had committed another rape and murder in Secunderabad the day he was arrested,” Vaghela said.

The officer said the accused is wanted in several murder, rape and robbery cases and used to operate mostly inside compartments for the disabled in which very few passenger travel.

Bengal CID officers said Rahul would be brought to the state on transit remand in connection with the murder of Chatterjee.