Over 50 murders, 125 kidneys sold: 'Doctor Death' in the net after 2 yrs
For 24 long months, he lived as a holy man. Draped in saffron robes, murmuring shlokas, he moved through the ashram in Dausa, Rajasthan, with quiet authority.
Pilgrims bowed before him. No one questioned the serene priest with the piercing eyes. But behind the sacred facade was a man with blood on his hands — a convicted serial killer, fugitive, and conman once known as Dr Devender Kumar Sharma who had murdered more than 50 people.
The Delhi Police finally arrested the 67-year-old ayurveda practitioner-turned-murderer last week after a six-month-long, intelligence-led manhunt.
Sharma, known in crime circles and police files as “Doctor Death,” had jumped parole in August 2023 and vanished — again — while serving multiple life sentences in some of the most gruesome criminal cases in recent Indian history.
This was not the first time Sharma had slipped through the cracks of the system. In 2020, he was granted 20-day parole but disappeared for over seven months. Despite his history, parole was granted again in June 2023 but rather than surrendering, he went absconding.
The cops began piecing together the scattered trail Sharma left behind. His old haunts were revisited: Delhi, Aligarh, Jaipur, Agra, Prayagraj. Informants were activated but all leads ended with zero hope, and for months, there was nothing solid.
DCP (Crime) Aditya Gautam said the police team finally got a whisper about a suspected priest in Dausa who might be Devender. The cops moved in quietly, camping near the ashram, blending in as curious devotees. What they saw confirmed what they suspected: the “holy man” was their man.
"The convict Devender was arrested. He confessed to his criminal past and admitted that he had jumped parole with the intention of never returning to jail," the DCP said.
Sharing his brief history, the DCP said records link him to the murder of at least 21 taxi and truck drivers, though he confessed to killing more than 50.
His method was brutal: hail a ride, lead the driver to an isolated spot, kill him, dump the body in "crocodile-infested" canals in Uttar Pradesh, and sell the vehicle in the grey market for mere Rs 20,000.
Surprisingly, that was not his only crime. The convict Devender, between 1998 and 2004, facilitated over 125 illegal kidney transplants, raking in lakhs through a flourishing black-market racket.
