The Delhi Police has arrested an Ayurveda practitioner turned serial killer, allegedly responsible for more than 50 murders across different States, on Tuesday, a year after he jumped parole in a murder case, officials said.
The accused, identified as 67-year-old Devender Sharma alias Doctor Death, hails from Purreni village in Uttar Pradesh’s Aligrah district and is known for dumping bodies of his victims in the crocodile-infested Hazara Canal in Uttar Pradesh’s Kasganj.
“He absconded in 2023 after being granted parole and had been on the run since. Sharma and his accomplices would lure drivers with fake trip requests, murder them, and sell their vehicles in the grey market,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Aditya Gautam said. From Delhi, Haryana, to Rajasthan, Devendra was sentenced to life imprisonment in seven separate murder cases, and even received the capital punishment in one case by a Gurgaon court.
“He was sentenced to life imprisonment in seven separate murder cases across Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana and even received the death penalty in one case by a Gurgaon court. Police believe he was responsible for over 50 murders,” said the officer.
Police said Devendra, a Bachelor’s in Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) degree holder, had been serving a life sentence in Tihar Jail for the brutal killings of many taxi and truck drivers between 2002 and 2004.
Sharma had come to Delhi with the intention of starting afresh and got married to his distant relative who knew about his criminal background, he said. He then entered the property business and started meditating in the sale of one Marshal House located at Connaught Place to a property dealer in Jaipur, officials said. Sharma turned to crime after incurring heavy financial losses in a failed gas dealership deal in 1994. A year later, he began running a fake gas agency and subsequently entered the illegal organ trade. His criminal pursuits then expanded to targeted killings of taxi drivers. The modus operandi involved hiring taxis, murdering the drivers, and selling their vehicles in the grey market. The bodies were fed to crocodiles.
Sharma, police said, ran an illicit kidney transplant racket in the 1990s and early 2000s. He confessed to facilitating more than 125 illegal transplants with the help of doctors and brokers, operating in several States. The bodies were then thrown into the Hazara Canal, known for its crocodile population, to erase all evidence. The accused has over a dozen cases registered against him across Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and during his time as a fugitive, he had been living in disguise as a priest in an Ashram in Dausa, Rajasthan.
“Sharma had jumped parole in August 2023 while serving his sentence at Tihar Jail and had been on the run since. The crime branch was tasked with knowing about his whereabouts and to nab him. Following a six-month-long operation spanning several cities, including Aligarh, Jaipur, Delhi, Agra and Prayagraj. The team eventually tracked him to an ashram in Dausa, where he was posing as a priest under a false identity,” said the DCP.
The officer further said that Sharma had a long criminal history involving at least 27 cases of murder, kidnapping, and robbery. He first gained notoriety for his involvement in a large-scale illegal kidney transplant racket operating between 1998 and 2004, allegedly earning lakhs per procedure in coordination with other doctors and middlemen.
He was arrested for both kidney racket and murder cases reported in 2002-2004 but was convicted only in only six-seven cases. His wife and children left him in 2004 after they came to know about his activities, he added.
As per the officials, when police once questioned Sharma about the media reports, he told them that he had lost count after 50 murders and it had become difficult for him to remember the exact number of the killings executed till date.
This is not the first time Sharma has absconded while on parole. In 2020, he failed to return after a 20-day parole and remained at large for seven months before being caught in Delhi. In June 2023, he was granted parole again for two months in a case registered at Sarita Vihar police station, but he disappeared after August 3, 2023.