Fugitive ‘serial killer’ living at Raj ashram as priest arrested by Delhi Police

Sixty seven-year-old Devender Sharma, charged with murdering 21 men between 2002 and 2004, had jumped his parole two years back for a second time in June 2023.

An ayurveda doctor convicted in seven murder cases and absconding for the last two years was residing at an ashram as a priest in Rajasthan and treating devotees for ailments — till Monday, when he was finally arrested after a seven-month long manhunt, Delhi Police officers said on Tuesday.

The Crime Branch arrested him from Rajasthan’s Dausa on Monday after a seven-month long operation. (HT PHOTO)

Sixty seven-year-old Devender Sharma, who is charged of murdering 21 men between 2002 and 2004, had jumped his parole two years back for a second time in June 2023. Sharma was one of the most wanted criminals in 2004 as he specifically targeted taxi drivers and confessed to have killed over 50 men, according to police.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2004. However, in 2020, he was released on parole and was absconding till he was nabbed few months later. In June 2023, he was again released on a two-month parole, which he too jumped.

In 2004, according to Delhi Police, Sharma said he had abducted over 21 taxi drivers from Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Prades, Rajasthan, murdered them, .and dumped the bodies in crocodile-infested lakes in UP’s Kasganj to destroy evidence. Police said that he also facilitated more than 125 illegal kidney transplants in Delhi-NCR between 1994-2004.

The Crime Branch arrested him from Rajasthan’s Dausa on Monday after a seven-month long operation during which searches were conducted across Delhi, Jaipur, Aligarh, Mumbai, Aligarh, Agra, and Prayagraj.

A team led by ACP Umesh Barthwal and inspector Rakesh Kumar had first zeroed in on Sharma’s family residing in Mumbai. “We put his wife’s and family members’ phone on surveillance. Then, an interesting pattern emerged. We found that a majority of the unknown number calls were received from either temples or religious sites across India…There were calls from Ashrams, temples in UP, even Mahakumbh area…” said an investigator aware of the details.

Further analysis led police to recent calls being made from Dausa in Rajasthan. “Our aim was to first look at all temples and religious sites. We had a hunch that Sharma could be hiding at a religious place,” added the investigator, wishing not to be named.

DCP (crime) Aditya Gautam said that investigators last week found that Sharma was residing at an ashram as a priest. He had changed his name to Devdas and was treating patients by prescribing them medicines, said police.

Gautam said his team stayed at Dausa for over a week and posed as devotees at the ashram to look for the accused.

Another investigator said, “We looked for him at multiple places and then found him as a local priest-doctor at an ashram. When I went to check and posed as a devotee with blood pressure issues, he asked me to put ghee on my head. We identified him and arrested him.”

Sharma, who held a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery degree, ran an Ayurveda clinic in Bandikui, Rajasthan for 11 years. In 1994, he was duped of ₹11 lakh in a gas dealership scam, after which he started his own fake gas agency. Around 1998, police said that he came in contact with his co-accused, Dr Amit Kumar, and they started a kidney racket. Police said that around the same time, he and his gang started abducting taxi drivers at night, killed them for their cars, and later sold the vehicles. He was arrested by the Gurugram and the Delhi Police after a Gurugram-based cab driver went missing in 2003 and his car was found in Delhi.