A serial killer in Madhya Pradesh, who is alleged to have murdered four security guards in their sleep, has been captured on CCTV attacking one of his victims.

The terrifying CCTV footage shows the killer, attired in shorts and a shirt,  first hitting his victim with a rod and then bashing his head with a stone. He waits for a while to see if anyone is around on the road and then escapes from the spot under the cover of darkness.

The man, identified as 19-year-old Shiv Prasad, got the idea for his bloody deeds from the blockbuster Kannada film KGF which revolving around an assassin. He had planned to step up his attacks and policemen were next on his list as he such killings as a way of becoming famous, police officer Tarun Nayak told journalists.

He was arrested early on Friday morning in Bhopal after the police tracked down the mobile phone he had stolen from one of the guards he had murdered.

Shiv Prasad killed three security guards in three nights in Sagar and one more in Bhopal last night, the police said.The killings, followed a pattern and the 19-year-old operated at night under the cover darkness, told the police that he and had spread dread in the big cities of the state. None of the victims was looted.

“The police eventually tracked down the serial killer as he was carrying the mobile phone of one of his victims. Based on the phone’s location he was caught in Bhopal,” said state Home Minister Narottam Mishra.

On Thursday night, he killed a man called Sonu Verma, 23, using a marble rod. Sonu Verma was a security guard at a marble shop. The police said Shiv Prasad’s killing spree began in Sagar, 169 km from Bhopal.

Kalyan Lodhi, a guard at a factory, was killed on August 28. His head was smashed with a hammer.

The very next night, a 60-year-old security guard at an arts and commerce college, Shambhu Narayan Dube, was killed with a stone.