33-Year-Old Ashwini Kashyap from UP's Bijnor killed 3 people before shooting himself on 5 October. Kashyap aka Johnny Dada was known as 'TikTok Villain' for his angry videos on the platform. According to a report in Hindustan Times, he had 23,000 followers on TikTok.
He also posted threatening messages on Facebook before going on a killing spree. Kashyap first shot dead 2 youngsters on 26 September, who had publicly "humiliated" him. 4 days later he shot dead, Nikita Sharma, an air-hostess he had been reportedly stalking for years. Nikita was to get married in December.
It's reported that Kashyap would often post images of actor Shahid Kapoor from his film 'Kabir Singh' on social media. In one of his videos he threatened, "if I could not make you my own, I will not let you be someone else's either". Kashyap aspired to be a Bollywood hero and his TikTok videos were an outlet for his dream to act in the movies.
Kashyap reportedly had a strained relationship with his family, he was only emotionally connected to his mother. After his mother died, he reportedly began to show violent streaks which he expressed on his social media posts. Kashyap was planning to kill members of his family when he shot himself after he was caught by the UP police. He had a reward of Rs 50,000 on his head.
Kashyap's killing spree and suicide raises questions about the portrayal of misogyny in Hindi films and concerns about the need to address mental health issues in small town India.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times)
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