'Dr Death' arrested: Convicted serial killer, who dumped bodies in crocodile-infested canal', traced to Rajasthan

Aserial killer, known on police files as ‘Doctor Death’, was arrested by the Delhi Police Crime Branch from Rajasthan on Monday evening — over a year after he jumped parole and absconded in August 2023.Police said Dr Devender Sharma, convicted in multiple murder cases and allegedly behind 50 gruesome killings, remained elusive for over a year and a half before he was finally caught — hiding in plain sight as a priest in an ashram — in Dausa.

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Sharma, a 67-year-old Ayurvedic doctor from Aligarh, was sentenced to life in seven cases of kidnapping and murdering taxi drivers between 2002 and 2004. In 2023, he was serving his sentence in Tihar Jail when he was granted parole and vanished.Before his arrest, Sharma practiced medicine at the Janta Clinic in Bandikui in Rajasthan for 11 years. In 1994, he was scammed of Rs 11 lakh — his entire life savings — after he attempted to open a gas dealership, said police.Police said Sharma returned home to Aligarh, where he operated a fake gas agency. He began targeting truck drivers — killing them to steal gas cylinders they were transporting from different suppliers to Aligarh, said police. The bodies would be disposed of in rivers.Between 1998 and 2004, police said he became involved in an illegal kidney transplant racket, facilitating more than 125 transplants across Delhi, Haryana, and Rajasthan with the help of another doctor and other middlemen. He