AGRA: In chilling disclosures made by a man who wanted to cure his wife of debilitating mental illness, he told shocked policemen on Thursday that on the "advice" of a tantrik he had already killed four minor girls and was on the lookout to murder three more.

The man, who has been identified as Sonu (he apparently just uses his first name), also revealed to horrified cops that he had raped the four minor girls before killing them. The tantrik had told him that to cure his wife he needed to kill seven minor girls in all.

Incidentally, Sonu is the friend of the man who on Tuesday had been dragged out of a police station in Mathura and lynched by a mob of about 100 men. The dead man has been identified as Lalua Balmiki. The mob had attacked Lalua after accusing him of the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl.

Police said that Sonu further told him that in his dark deeds it was Lalua who aided him. Sub-inspector Omkar Sharma of Farah police station in Mathura, tasked with guarding Sonu from angry mobs as he recuperates from injuries at the SN Medical College in Agra, said the man had confessed to the murder of the 12-year-old girl whose brutalised body was found in the bushes outside Parkham village early this week.

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There has been much tension in the village after the lynching. While the Thakurs protested on railway tracks and halted trains, the Dalits said one of their sons was killed and their houses burnt by upper caste men.

On Wednesday, police lodged an FIR against 100 unnamed men for dragging Lalua out of police lock-up and lynching him. Four policemen were suspended for laxity at work.