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Gowri Shankar or Gauri Shankar alias Auto Shankar was an Indian serial killer who was also involved in illicit arrack trade and procuring. He was convicted, along with his gang, of the six murders of five men and a woman in and around Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai between 1987 and 1988 and was later hanged to death. He was a married father of four children. His case became wide known after R. Gopal appealed in the Supreme Court against the Government of Tamil Nadu for publishing the Autobiography of Auto Shankar in his bi-weekly Nakkheeran in 1994. He was later known for raping and murdering teenage girls, which he did in his business. Films and soap operas have been featured, loosely inspired from his story.

Early Life
Gowri Shankar was born to a Malayalee father and Tamil mother in Kangeyanallur near Vellore in 1955. While he was a pre-university course student, his family broke up and the father left for Orissa. He came to madras in the early years of 1970 and lived in a Mylapore slum and then moved to Thiruvanmiyur. He eked out a living by peddling cycle rickshaws, a painter and later shifted his career towards driving autorickshaw. The appellation Auto was thus attached to his name.

Auto Shankar's two favourite pastimes were watching horror and violence movies. He confessed that watching horror movies gave him the ideas for disposing off the bodies from them. He was also an avid reader of Rajesh Kumar (writer) to whom he sneaked out an inland letter through his mother while in the prison asking him as to why the bad guys in his novels were always caught.

Auto Shankar married his first wife Jagadeeswari early in his crime career and they have four children. Then he developed an emotional involvement with one of his 'girls', Geeta Sundar, and married her. She tried to reform Shankar, but having failed, she burnt herself to death. After Geetha, came Lalitha. She lived with Shankar for sometime and then ran away with one of his pimps, Sudalai.

Making of his crime career
Around this time, Thiruvanmiyur was developing into a new suburb and was a haven for brothels and illicit distillation. Shankar began transporting liquor between Tiruvanmiyur and Mamallapuram to the city and later supplying girls to lodges in Thiruvanmiyur and the Mahabalipuram coast. He established contacts with film artistes and VIP customers to whom he supplied with girls from Kodambakkam. Over a period of time, he established himself firmly in the area and ruled the crime world of Thiruvanmiyur with the help of his brother Mohan, brother-in-law Eldin and few other partners Shivaji, Jayavelu, Rajaraman, Palani and Paramasivam.

He cultivated a Robin Hood image among the slum dwellers and was on the way to becoming a sort of folk-hero when he was arrested for multiple murders.

Auto Shankar did indeed liberally help the needy and settle their disputes. They were even more impressed when they saw him being saluted by the police when he cruised past in his car. What they didn't know was the reason for the salute - the car once belonged to a DIG of police and some cops recognised the number, even while it was driven by Shankar with its windows up, loaded with illicit liquor and women.

Capture
Auto Shankar was arrested on July 7, 1988 on a complaint from a housewife, Vijaya, who suspected that her husband Sampath had been murdered by the Auto Shankar gang. The entire sordid drama relating to the life and times of Shankar would never have come to the light, but for the publication of a news story in a vernacular paper. At June end 1988, the housewife Vijaya made a complaint to Mylapore police that her husband Sampath was missing for over 40 days with his two friends, Mohan and Govindaraj. The three were said to have been involved in a quarrel with the Shankar gang. Vijaya was advised to give another complaint at Thriuvanmiyur police.

The thiruvanmiyur police booked a case under Sec. 75 of the city police act (creating nuisance) against Auto Shankar, questioned and then released him. The distraught Vijaya knocked several doors and finally on the advice of a journalist neighbour, she submitted a memorandum to the governor which was forwarded to the Thiruvanmiyur police station. The police called Vijaya and ordered her to stop bothering them by sending petitions. She went home weeping and narrated the story to her neighbour. Next day, he published the story, hinting that the three might have been murdered. The then IG (Crime) K.K. Rajasekharan nair ordered a special inquiry and a team led by the then Range DIG S.I.Jaffar ALi solved the mystery of the three missing men. The local Dy. SP., the Inspector and a dozen constables were suspended from sevice on various charges including criminal negligence. (Barring four, all the other have rejoined duty after obtaining orders from courts.)

Investigations by the state crime branch (CID) revealed that along with Sampath, two otehr were also bumped off by the gang on the night of May 20, 1988. The bodies were dug up from the basement of Shankar's double storeyed house in Thiruvanmiyur. Further investigation led to the recovery of two more skeletons - of a man Ravi and a woman Lalitha, killed by the gang a year earlier - from the floor and the backyard of a nearby hut owned by Shankar. The body of another victim Sudalai, cout not be recovered, as it was burnt and the ashes thrown into the sea, according to Shankar.

The murders were the result of the disputes arising out of girl-running and other rackets in which the gang was involved. The indifference of local police to Shankar's activities and the 'political influence' that he had gained through his 'trade' boosted his image. \

Auto Shankar confessed to his crime and much more. According to him, the three murdered men belonged to another gang and there used to be occasional skirmishes between the two. On May 29, 1988, the three refused to pay for the services rendered to them by his 'girls' and they also demanded protection money from the Auto Shankar gang. A furious Shankar ordered his men to invite the three into their den, promising payment. Once they entered his domain, the three were beaten to death and buried in his house. "Scientific" interrogation, according to the police, led to his confessing to the other three murders as well.

Jail Break and Recapture
On the night of August 20, he escaped with four cell-mates from the 'killers block' of the prison despite a warning to jail authorities by the state crime branch (CID) police about a possible jail break by him. His escape, just one day before the approver's statement was to be recorded in court, has led to speculation of all kinds. It is alleged that he was allowed to escape so that he would not implicate any bigwigs in the police and political hierarchy who received and it is also widely believed that he will not be caught alive.

The others who escaped from prison with him are Selvaraj, another accused in the Thiruvanmiyur murder, and two others - a law graduate, Harikrishnan, and his friend Sanal Kumar, involved in the murder of a youth from Saidapet.

The jail break, the first of its kind in the history of Madras Central Prison, has come as a rude shock to the government, against whom there were already several charged of laxity on the law and order front. While the killers of 13 EPRLF cadres and two local Tamilians on June 19 have not yet been caught, the escape of five persons already caight on charges of half a dozen muders, has shaken the faith of people in the state administration. Auto Shankar's escape has been described as 'disgraceful' by several former bureaucrats and members of the public.

Auto Shankar is believed to have won over the jail subordinate staff, who left his cell unlocked on the night of the escape. All the five in the cell came out just after midnight and holding on to a rope either thrown from outside or procured from inside and hooked by the inmates on to the top of the wall, climbed out of the jail. According to the IG (Prisons), the footprints on the jail were a clear indication that they escaped over the wall. The suburban Park railway stations adjoins the prison wall, and it is possible that they escaped by the first suburban train or by some waiting vehicle. The investigating officers are still in the dark as to how they escaped and in which they would have gone.

The state government has ordered a judicial probe by the former chief justice of Tamil Nadu, M.M.Ismail, into the jail break and placed 13 jail officials, including the prison superintendent, under suspension.

Media
They started their own 'trade'. Shankar considered this a double challenge - to his masculinity and to his profession. But he bided his time. A patch up was effected through common friends and he invited Lalitha home one night in October 1987. She was killed and buried inside a hut owned by him, and later, he let it out to an old woman who was the sole occupant of the house till police sent her out and dug up the floor. Shankar told Sudalai that Lalitha was on an all India tour with a 'VIP' and two months later, invited Sudalai, himself for dinner. After loading him with liquor, he strangled him. His body was burnt in the house and his ashes thrown into the sea. But this burning had left black marks under the roof and floor. Next day, Shankar got the roof repainted and the floor re-laid. To the inquistive neighbour, he said that a butcher had supplied him some sheep-heads and he had roasted them over a fire.

The sudden disappearance of Sudalai disturbed his friend, auto driver ravi, who questioned Shankar about his disappearance. Fearing exposure, he resorted to the same modus operandi, killed Ravi and buried him behind the hut was was not rented out. He explained to a few who dared to make inquiries that some illicit arrack barrels were being buried there and he was expecting a police raid any minute. This satisfied the few curious onlookers.

Shankar later posted a letter, as if written by Ravi from Bombay, to Ravi's wife saying that he had to leave urgently for Bombay and he was trying for an overseas job. She knew of her husband's death only when she was summoned by police to identify the body.

His first three murders had gone undetected and this emboldened him to commit more murders. He denied having any connection with any VIPs or senior police officials.

The rise and fall of Auto Shankar is the story of an ambitious and literate youth, who came to the metropolitan city from a small town to strike it rich. Within 15 years, the illicit liquor and flesh trade brought him wealth even beyond his dreams. By the time he was 36, he had his own multi-storeyed house, car, autos, motor cycles, and 'connections' which could get any job done for him. He might even have ended up as the leader of some political party if he had not got caught, with unshakeable evidence against him.

Murders
Shankar and his gang consisting of his younger brother Auto Mohan, associates — Eldin and Shivaji, as well as Jayavelu, Rajaraman, Ravi, Palani and Paramasivam were found guilty of six murders, committed over a period of two years in 1987–1988. They were tried for the murders of Lalitha, Sudalai, Sampath, Mohan, Govindaraj and Ravi. The bodies of the victims were either burnt or buried inside residential houses.

In late 1988, over a period of approximately six months, nine teenage girls from the Thiruvanmiyur section of Chennai disappeared. In the beginning, investigators believed that the girls had been sold into prostitution by families unable to afford wedding dowries, but the consistent denials by their kin forced them to seek another explanation.

Late in December, a schoolgirl named Subalakshmi claimed that an auto rickshaw driver had attempted to abduct her in front of a wine shop. Working undercover in the local wine shop back-rooms, detectives learned of a rumour that an auto driver called Shankar was behind the crimes, disposing of the bodies by cremating them and pouring the remains into the Bay of Bengal. The following morning, the police picked up the suspect who overnight became known to the nation as "Auto Shankar".

Trial
Shankar's trial was completed by the Chengalpattu sessions court; He was sentenced to death along with two of his associates, Eldin and Shivaji, on May 31, 1991. Auto Shankar was hanged in Salem Central Prison.

Associates
In 2002, Shankar's five accomplices were sentenced to six months of Rigorous Imprisonment after having been found guilty by a Magistrate. The accomplices were Shankar's brother, Mohan, Selva (alias Selvaraj) and the jail wardens Kannan, Balan and Rahim Khan. They were found guilty of criminal conspiracy and resistance or obstruction by a person to his lawful apprehension.

Subsequently, Mohan was also found guilty of the six murders and was given three life sentences. Mohan had earlier escaped from the Chennai Central Prison in August 1990 and was re-arrested in Pune on June 25, 1992.

Responses
K. Vijay Kumar, the Tamil Nadu Additional Director-General of Police, claimed that cinema was solely responsible for making Shankar a criminal. He mentioned this during a seminar on "Crime and Media" in Kerala.

The trial has become widely known across the nation since the Supreme Court invoked the American free speech doctrine and the case became oft-quoted in relation to cases of expose.