Ravindra Kumar told NDTV that he would have continued the assaults and murders had he not been caught.
Ravindra Kumar, the 24-year-old man accused of being a rapist and serial killer who targeted children, has told NDTV that he has so far murdered around 15 children. Blaming alcohol for his misdeeds, he said had he not been caught, he would have continued targeting children.
"I used to drink and commit this crime... I felt bad but the next time I drank I did it again," he told NDTV during an interview. "Had I been a parent, I would have asked for strict punishment too."
Kumar -- who is in police custody for questioning for a week -- was arrested on July 15 for allegedly raping and murdering a six-year-old girl in Noida.
Her strangled body had been found in a building under construction. Her parents had reported her missing on July 14 after she had gone to a nearby field at night to relieve herself.
Police say Kumar committed his first crime in 2008. Over the next few years, the number of crimes rose. He lured the children with sweets and candies and then assaulted them.
Later he temporarily shifted base to Aligarh, where he abused five children, one of whom died. In 2013, he raped two children while was working as a labourer in Noida.
Two more crimes were committed in 2014 -- one at Samaypur Badli and another in Begampur. He had tried to murder both children. But in Begumpur, a boy whose throat had been slit, survived, police said.
Police said Kumar had studied till Class 6 and worked as a driver or a casual labourer. He was also a drug addict.
Asked why he murdered the children, Kumar told NDTV, "They made too much noise. Also I wanted them to keep their silence."
The case came as a shock to the National Capital Region, where bones of several young children were discovered from a drain in Noida in 2006.
Surinder Koli, a man who worked as a domestic help in a nearby house, was sentenced to life imprisonment for those serial deaths, referred to as "the Nithari killings" after the area where they took place. Koli's employer, businessman Maninder Singh Pandher, has been acquitted.