Thursday | Jun 19 2025 | 12:07:27 PM
New Delhi, May 21
The Delhi Police have arrested a notorious Ayurvedic practitioner-turned-serial killer -- infamous as ‘Doctor Death’ for feeding his victims to crocodiles. The accused had jumped the parole last year after which he was absconding.
The accused has been identified as Devender Sharma (67) was convicted in multiple murder cases. The criminal was posing as a priest under a false identity at an ashram in Rajasthan's Dausa.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment in seven separate cases across Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana. He has been awarded capital punishment by Gurugram court.
DCP (Crime) Aditya Gautam stated that Sharma had been serving life sentence in Tihar Jail for the brutal killings of several taxi and truck drivers between 2002 and 2004, when he jumped parole in August 2023.
To follow his modus operandi, he used to call his drivers and his accomplices used to call drivers on fake trips, murder them and sell their vehicles in the grey market. The bodies were then thrown into the crocodile-infested waters of Hazara Canal at Kasganj in Uttar Pradesh to erase all evidence.
Sharma, a BAMS (bachelor of ayurvedic medicine and surgery) degree holder, had opened a clinic in Rajasthan in 1984. He has a long criminal history involving at least 27 cases of murder, kidnapping and robbery. He first gained notoriety for running an illicit kidney transplant racket between 1995 and 2004. He confessed to police about facilitating more than 125 illegal transplants with the help of doctors and middlemen operating across several states.
Sharma turned to crime after incurring heavy financial losses in a failed gas dealership deal. In 1994, he had invested Rs 11 lakh in a company to obtain the dealership. A year later, he floated a fake gas agency and also entered the illegal organ trade.
Between 1995 and 2004, he formed a gang that allegedly intercepted trucks carrying LPG cylinders, killed the drivers and stole the consignments. He also carried out 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.
In this period, Sharma is suspected to have murdered over two dozen people. He was also part of a racket and allegedly charged Rs 7 lakh per case. He was arrested in 2004 in connection with both the kidney racket and the serial killings.
