Doctor admits to murdering 50 cab drivers to steal their cars, dumped bodies in crocodile-infested canal
An Indian doctor confessed to murdering 50 taxi drivers and dumping their bodies in a crocodile-infested canal. The serial killer who fled to another state while out of prison on parole was arrested in the national capital on Wednesday, July 30, the police said.
Devender Sharma, 62, from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, admitted that he deliberately take cab rides to a secluded area before killing the cabby and dumping his corpse and stealing his car. The doctor, who practices traditional Indian medicine, said that he lost count of the number of drivers he killed and fed to the reptiles. According to the authorities, Sharma could well have been involved in more than 100 murders.
After the bodies were eaten by the crocodiles Sharma sold the vehicles either whole or in parts and made around $270 for each car.
The suspect ran a clinic at a hospital in Rajasthan for 11 years, starting in 1984, according to police. He became involved in a scheme selling fake gas canisters after losing money in a scam. "His accomplices robbed trucks carrying LPG cylinders by killing the driver. They unloaded the trucks in his fake gas agency and then the robbed truck would be dismantled in Meerut," a police officer said.
After being arrested in 2004 over a scheme involving illegal kidney transplants, he confessed to being involved with more than 125 such transplants, earning between $6,680 and $9,350 for each transplant.
Sharma was also convicted of murdering up to seven taxi drivers and sentenced to life in prison in Jaipur, between 2002 and 2004 for which he was given life imprisonment. "Sharma was serving life sentence in Central Jail, Jaipur in a murder case and was out on parole for 20 days in January this year after spending 16 years in jail. But he jumped parole and stayed at his village for a while before moving to Delhi in early March," a police officer said.
Around six months after he went missing he was apprehended in Delhi, where he had been living with a widow who he had married in the time that he had disappeared and was being hunted for. According to a news release Wednesday from Delhi police, he confessed that he had broken his parole conditions and didn't plan to return to jail. His wife knew about his criminal past, according to NDTV and he began a property business and was in the process of mediating the sale of a property with a dealer.
"Earlier, he was living at the house of an acquaintance... Our team arrested him after we received information about his hideout on Tuesday," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Paweriya said.
Although there were others involved with him in the scam of the murder of more than 50 taxi drivers, Sharma said that he was the mastermind behind the plan. Authorities said that after being arrested, he remained calm and cooperated with the police. Apparently his former wife and children left him in 2004 after they came to know about his criminal activities.