After evading delhi police for 21 yrs gangster doctor death’s aide arrested

After evading delhi police for 21 yrs gangster doctor death’s aide arrested

A month ago, on May 19, police arrested Devender Sharma, alias Doctor Death, the leader of a gang allegedly involved in killing truck and taxi drivers to steal their vehicles and sell them off in the grey market between 2002 and 2004. Police had been looking for him since 2023 when he jumped parole.

During questioning, he was asked about his aide Rajender. Despite his name surfacing in seven murders across Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, Rajender had managed to evade Delhi Police for 21 years.

The police were in for a shock when Sharma revealed that his associate, 59-year-old Rajua, who was convicted for life for only one murder by the gang in Jaipur in 2007, was none other than Rajender.

Police learnt that after completing his sentence – from 2007 to 2021 – in Jaipur jail, Rajender had moved to Aligarh to start a new life as a security guard.

On Saturday, Crime Branch swooped down upon Rajender in the Kasimpur area of Aligarh and arrested him, police said.

“The accused (Sharma) 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 in 2004,” Aditya Gautam, DCP (Crime), said.

“He was convicted of the murder of a taxi driver in Jaipur as part of the Doctor Death gang under the name Rajua. This name was fake, and didn’t come up in other murder investigations of alleged crimes committed by the gang. Hence, he served his sentence from 2007 to 2021, and was then released,” a police officer said.

Following Sharma’s revelation, 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 traced Rajender to Kasimpur. He had been living in an isolated room and working as a security guard at a local pump house. He was apprehended,” DCP Gautam said.

Rajender is named in 12 prior cases, including murder, kidnapping, and robbery. The police believe that he might be involved in four more murder cases in Delhi and Gurgaon, for which he is yet to be convicted.

About ‘Doctor Death’

Sharma is 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. He never returned to Tihar.

Before his arrest, Sharma practised 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 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. In many cases, the trucks were also sold off, officers added. The bodies would be disposed of in water bodies, they said. The police said that Sharma — who had a gang by now — was responsible for the abduction and murder of numerous taxi drivers between 2002 and 2004. His modus operandi, the police said, also included hiring taxis from Delhi and then killing the driver and dumping 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 was given life imprisonment for the murders of only seven persons, said an officer.