On the run for 21 years, Doctor Death's associate arrested for Delhi murder

Indian Express

13 hours ago

An associate of notorious serial killer Doctor Death, on the run for 21 years for one of his gang's murders in Sarita Vihar, was finally arrested by the Crime Branch from his native Aligarh on Saturday, Delhi Police said.
On May 19, the police arrested Devender Sharma, aka Doctor Death, the leader of the gang that allegedly killed truck and taxi drivers to steal their vehicles and sell them off in the grey market. They interrogated him about the elusive gang member Rajender, whose name had cropped up in connection with seven murders committed by the gang across Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, but was never caught before by the police.
The police were in for a shock when Devender revealed that an associate, Rajua, 59, convicted for life for only one murder by the gang in Jaipur in 2007, was the same person as Rajender.
'The accused revealed that Rajua was the same person as Rajender and was working under a false identity to hide his involvement in other murders, including that in Sarita Vihar,' Aditya Gautam, DCP (Crime), said.
Though Rajender, 59, did serve time as Rajua in Jaipur jail from 2007 to 2021, the police believed that he was involved in only one murder, a police official said.
'He was accused in the murder of a taxi driver in Jaipur as part of the Doctor Death gang and was convicted for life under the name Rajua. This name was fake, and didn't come up in other murder investigations of crimes committed by the gang. Hence, he served his sentence from 2007 to 2021, and was then released,' a police official said.
A team led by Inspector Rakesh Sharma of the Crime Branch, supervised by ACP Umesh Barthwal started tracing Rajender. Inputs were gathered from across western Uttar Pradesh, which revealed that a security guard in Kasimpur area of Aligarh matched Rajender's profile.
'After sustained efforts, they successfully traced Rajender to Kasimpur, Aligarh, where he had been hiding in an isolated room and working as a security guard at a local pump house. He was apprehended,' DCP Gautam said.
Living under the radar in Kasimpur, Rajender is named in 12 prior cases, including that of murder, kidnapping, and robbery. The police believe that he might be involved in four more murder cases in Delhi and Gurugram, for which he is yet to be convicted.
On May 19, the same Crime Branch team led by Inspector Rakesh Sharma arrested Devender Sharma, a 67-year-old Ayurvedic doctor from Aligarh, who 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 practised medicine at the Janta Clinic in Bandikui in Rajasthan for 11 years. In 1994, he was scammed out of Rs 11 lakh — his entire life savings — after he attempted to open a gas dealership, said the police.
The 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 the police. The bodies would be disposed of in rivers.
Between 2002 and 2004, the police said Sharma — who had a gang by now — was responsible for the abduction and murder of numerous taxi drivers.
His modus operandi, the police said, involved hiring taxis from Delhi. He then killed the driver and dumped the body in the crocodile-infested Hazra Canal in Kasganj. The stolen taxis were then sold in the grey market for Rs 20,000-Rs 25,000 each.
Sharma was arrested and charged with the murders of 21 taxi drivers, although he later admitted to killing more than 50 people, said the police.
As the police could never recover the bodies of the victims, Sharma would be given life imprisonment for the murders of only seven victims.