NEW DELHI: A key associate of notorious serial killer Devender Sharma alias ‘Dr Death’ has been arrested by Delhi Police from Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh after remaining on the run for 21 years, an official on Sunday said.
The accused, identified as Rajender alias Rajua (59), is a resident of Kasimpur in Aligarh and a proclaimed offender, he said. The official said that Rajender was apprehended on June 14 by a team of Crime Branch.
“He was wanted in a 2004 case of murder, kidnapping, causing disappearance of evidence, criminal conspiracy and common intention at Sarita Vihar Police Station,” the police officer said.
“A court had declared Rajender a proclaimed offender in the case, but he had managed to evade arrest for over two decades,” the officer added.
Rajender was a close accomplice of Devender Sharma alias Dr Death, who was arrested from Rajasthan’s Dausa earlier on May 19, police said.
Sharma, a notorious serial killer and Ayurveda practitioner, infamously dubbed “Doctor Death” was arrested by Delhi Police after jumping parole last year.
Convicted in multiple murder cases, Sharma (67) was known for dumping the bodies of his victims in the crocodile-infested Hazara Canal in Uttar Pradesh’s Kasganj.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment in seven separate murder cases across Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana, and even received the capital punishment in one case by a Gurgaon court.
The police believe that he was responsible for over 50 murders. Sharma, a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) degree holder, had been serving a life sentence in Tihar Jail for the brutal killings of many taxi and truck drivers between 2002 and 2004.
He absconded in 2023 after being granted parole and was on the run since then.
Sharma disclosed during his interrogation that Rajender, a key operative of their crime syndicate active in early 2000, was still absconding, they said.
Based on the inputs, a police team began tracking Rajender across multiple cities, including Aligarh, Jaipur and Delhi.
After days of surveillance and tip-off, the accused was finally traced to a remote area of Kasimpur, where he had been living in an isolated room and working as a security guard at a local pump house under a false identity.
“Rajender was involved in multiple killings, primarily of truck and taxi drivers, along with Sharma and other gang members,” said the police officer. Rajender revealed during his interrogation that he had joined Sharma’s gang in 2003 after a personal dispute, police said.
Arrested in a 2007 Jaipur murder case under a false name, Rajender served 14 years without revealing his identity. After securing bail in 2021, he lived secretly in Aligarh. He faces 12 criminal cases and is wanted in four more murders in Delhi and Gurugram, police said.