NEW DELHI: Indian police said Monday they are investigating whether a man arrested for the murder and sexual assault of a six-year-old girl may have been a serial child killer after he confessed to 14 more crimes.

Ravinder Kumar made the confession after he was arrested in New Delhi on Thursday, Deputy Commissioner of Delhi Police Vikramjeet Singh said.

Singh said police questioned the 24-year-old laborer after discovering he had been detained in a separate assault case last year and released on bail.

“We specifically arrested Ravinder Kumar over the assault and murder of a six-year-old girl,” he said.

“After we realized that he had previously been arrested in a similar case, we interrogated him... and he told us of at least 14 other cases.”

A police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said Kumar had confessed to the “assault and murder of 14 or 15 children over the last few years.”

“We are in the process of ascertaining all his claims and separate teams are looking at every claim,” the officer said.

The case has drawn comparisons with the gruesome discovery in 2006 of the dismembered bodies of 19 people in sewage drains near a house in Noida, a satellite city of the Indian capital.