The media over this period show that “Dr. Death” has committed more than 100 murders
New Delhi:
An Ayurvedic doctor jailed for life for murdering truck drivers and feeding their remains to crocodiles has been arrested after parole while being released for good behavior, police said.
Devendra Kumar Sharma, 62, was arrested Tuesday evening by Delhi police in the capital. In January, he did not return from a week-long parole after serving 16 years in prison.
Sharma was sentenced to life in 2004 in Rajasthan after being convicted of several murders between 2002 and 2004, which earned him the nickname “Dr Death” in the media.
“(He) has been implicated in dozens of kidnapping and murder cases of truck and taxi drivers in Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan,” Delhi Deputy Police Commissioner Rakesh Paweriya said , in a press release.
Police alleged Sharma first came to the attention of authorities twenty years ago because of her involvement in an illegal kidney transplant racket between 1994 and 2004.
Sharma, with the help of other doctors and intermediaries, is said to have organized at least 125 transplants in an organ trafficking racket.
Police also accused him of being part of a gang that hired taxis and trucks before killing their drivers, stealing them and selling the vehicles.
“They used to dump corpses in the Hazara Canal in Kashganj, Uttar Pradesh, where crocodiles were found, (and) there was no chance of a body being recovered,” Mr Paweriya said. .
Sharma was later convicted of at least six murders, police said, but Mr Paweriya added that he admitted to having committed many more.
“He was revealed to have been the mastermind of more than 50 such murders,” the statement said.
“Media reports from this period show that he committed more than 100 murders of taxi drivers for which cases have been recorded in Delhi, UP, Haryana and Rajasthan.”
Sharma told police he gave up parole to move to Delhi and hoped to start a new life.
