Chandigarh, Nov. 29 -- A chance encounter and a cop's instinct during a routine patrol were what led to a breakthrough in the 2010 rape-murder case that police had closed as "untraced" in 2020. In 2023, the convict, Monu Kumar, was spotted by now retired inspector Jaspal Singh near the Sector 39 Water Works. Having received common forensic leads in two similar rape-murder cases, involving the MBA student in 2010 and a 40-year-old woman in Maloya in 2022, police had started profiling suspects living in the vicinity of the murder scenes, collecting DNA samples to nail the killer. Out for a patrol around then, inspector Jaspal noticed a man standing in a drunk and suspicious state. "Something about his behaviour was off. I felt he should not be ignored," Jaspal said. He was detained under preventive custody and his blood sample was collected. Police released the man the next day, but kept a discreet watch on him at his residence in Shahpur Colony. The DNA report arrived after seven to eight months, tying Monu Kumar to both the 2010 and 2022 cases. Semen samples preserved from the bodies of both victims matched with the DNA from his blood sample. After police failed to track him down in the first murder, he brazenly targeted the second victim 12 years later. Armed with scientific proof, police apprehended Kumar, paving the way for trial to commence. Initially, he denied involvement. When confronted with the DNA results, he confessed first to the 2022 murder and then to the 2010 crime, recalling minute details. "He remembered everything - the spot, the sequence, the weapon," said inspector Jaspal, recalling the interrogation. On the final day of remand, he admitted to the third murder - in Sector 54 in February 2024. Interestingly, Kumar was questioned by Amanjot, the then Maloya SHO, in 2010 too. But was released in the absence of witness testimony or DNA evidence....