Chandigarh, Nov. 28 -- Over 15 years after a 21-year-old MBA student was raped and murdered in Sector 38 West in 2010, a local court on Thursday convicted taxi driver Monu Kumar, who was nailed through semen preserved from the victim's body. While a copy of the order wasn't available on Thursday, the court of additional district and sessions judge Dr Yashika convicted Kumar under Sections 302 (murder) and 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code. The quantum of sentence will be pronounced on Friday by the Special Women and Child Court. The victim's family said they will speak to the media only after the sentencing. Having managed to evade arrest for over a decade, Kumar, 39, was finally apprehended in May 2024 after an eerily similar crime in Maloya revived the probe that had gone cold for 14 years. Forensic analysis had concluded that the semen samples from the bodies of both victims - the MBA student and a 40-year-old woman who met the same fate in 2-km away Maloya in 2022 - belonged to the same man. Months later, Kumar's DNA also matched the semen found on the clothes of a 55-year-old woman who was brutally murdered in Sector 54 on February 27, 2024. Following his arrest, Kumar had revealed that he found the MBA student talking on her phone while sitting on her scooter near a secluded taxi stand in Sector 38 West on July 30, 2010. He had attacked her from the back with a heavy stone, leaving her half dead. He then dragged her into the bushes where he raped her. The student was found in semi-naked condition in the bushes and was rushed to PGIMER, Chandigarh, where she was declared brought dead. There were strangulation marks on the neck, and the body also bore severe injuries on the wrist, thigh and the back. According to police, Kumar was heavily intoxicated when he committed the crime. As per the chargesheet, Kumar sold one of her phones and discarded the other in a jungle. He also signed a receipt using a false address. After his arrest, the chargesheet was filed on August 2, 2024, and the charges were framed on August 21, 2024. As per police officials, Kumar, who has studied till Class 7, hadn't even registered for an Aadhaar card to evade arrest. Investigators said Kumar worked as an inter-city taxi driver and thus, mostly stayed out of town. A resident of now-razed Shahpur Colony in Sector 38 West, Kumar is the father of two daughters, but separated from them and his wife since 2011, said police. He originally hails from Uttar Pradesh and continues to face trial in the other two rape-murder cases. He was also booked in a similar rape-murder case in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh, in2008. But acquitted due to lack of evidence....