Devender Kumar Sharma is an Ayurvedic doctor from Aligarh district in Uttar Pradesh whom Indian police and newspapers have called "Doctor Death." Courts in Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana have sentenced him to life imprisonment in seven murder cases, and a court in Gurgaon sentenced him to death in one, according to the Press Trust of India in 2025. The cases arose from a gang's killings of taxi and truck drivers between 2002 and 2004. Police say the drivers were hired for trips that did not exist, killed in isolated places, and that their vehicles were sold.
Police records link him to the murders of at least 21 drivers, the Tribune reported in 2025. He told police he had killed more than 50 people. In 2020, when he was caught after jumping parole, a Delhi police officer said earlier media reports of more than 100 killings could not be confirmed, because the cases had been investigated separately by the police of four states. Police have also said he took part in an illegal kidney transplant trade for about a decade.
Sharma has twice failed to return from parole. In 2020 he was free for about seven months. In 2023 he disappeared again, and Delhi police did not find him until May 2025, when officers arrested him at an ashram in Dausa, Rajasthan, where he had been living as a priest under the name Dayadas.
His name appears in two spellings. The Press Trust of India and the Tribune write Devender Sharma; the Indo-Asian News Service, ANI and the Hindi newspapers Amar Ujala and Rajasthan Patrika write Devendra Sharma. His full name is given as Devender Kumar Sharma in ETV Bharat's 2020 report and the Tribune's 2025 report.
Sharma comes from Purreni village in Aligarh district, Uttar Pradesh, according to PTI and ETV Bharat in 2020. He was 62 at the time of his 2020 arrest and 67 when he was caught in 2025. The Indo-Asian News Service reported in 2025 that he was born in Siwan, in Bihar, where his father worked for a pharmaceutical company.
He earned a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery degree, the BAMS, in Siwan, PTI reported in 2020. ANI, quoting the police in 2025, gave 1984 as the year of the degree. In 2020 Amar Ujala noted that although his degree was a BAMS, he was said to have performed surgeries.
Villagers told Amar Ujala in 2025 that one of his brothers lived in Uttarakhand and another worked for the Central Industrial Security Force. They said he had married the daughter of a railway officer in Kasganj, and that his BAMS degree was part of what made the match.
After qualifying, Sharma practiced medicine in Rajasthan. Accounts of the first clinic differ on the town and the year. PTI's 2020 report said he started a clinic in Jaipur in 1984. IANS said in 2025 that he founded the Janata Clinic at Bandikui in 1985 and ran it for 11 years, and ANI, quoting the police the same year, also said he ran a clinic in Bandikui for 11 years. PTI's 2025 report said only that he opened a clinic in Rajasthan in 1984.
The turn, as the police told it, came through a failed business deal. PTI reported in 2020 that in 1992 he invested 11 lakh rupees in a gas dealership scheme, was cheated and fell into financial trouble. ETV Bharat, also quoting the police, put the investment in 1994 and said the scheme had been run by a company called Bharat Fuel Company, which vanished and left many investors cheated. ANI and the Deccan Herald's copy of PTI's 2025 report also put the loss in 1994.
According to police, he then set up a fake gas agency, presented as a Bharat Petroleum agency, in Chharra village in Aligarh district in 1995. ETV Bharat reported that associates robbed trucks carrying liquefied petroleum gas cylinders by killing their drivers, and unloaded the cylinders at his agency; PTI added that the trucks were dismantled in Meerut. He was arrested about a year and a half after the agency opened, ETV Bharat said. In 2001, according to PTI, he started another fake gas agency, in Amroha, and was arrested again. Police in 2020 counted two arrests for running fake gas agencies. PTI's 2025 report said his gang intercepted gas trucks, killed the drivers and stole the cargo between 1995 and 2004.
Police have also tied Sharma to an illegal kidney transplant racket that ran across several states. In 2020 PTI, ETV Bharat and Gulf News, quoting the police, dated his involvement from 1994 to 2004 and said it reached Jaipur, Ballabgarh, Gurgaon and other places. In 2025 PTI, the Deccan Herald, the Tribune and ANI gave the years as 1998 to 2004.
He claimed to have arranged more than 125 illegal transplants, police said, earning 5 to 7 lakh rupees in each case. ANI reported in 2025 that he had acted as a middleman for another doctor. He and several other doctors were arrested in 2004 in what police called the Gurgaon kidney racket case.
The murders for which Sharma was convicted belong to the years 2002 to 2004. Delhi Police described the method in 2025 through the deputy commissioner of the Crime Branch, Aditya Gautam. The gang hired taxis, took them to deserted roads, killed the drivers and sold the cars on the gray market, he told ANI.
In PTI's 2020 account, the accomplices hired taxis for trips to Aligarh and killed the drivers in secluded places. The stolen taxis were sold in Kasganj for 20,000 to 25,000 rupees each, according to PTI and Amar Ujala, and some vehicles were dismantled in Meerut.
Police in 2025 said he and his accomplices drew both taxi and truck drivers into fake trips.
Their number has never been fixed. The Tribune, in 2025, said police records link him to the murders of at least 21 taxi and truck drivers. ANI reported that he was charged with murdering 21 taxi drivers. Gautam told ANI that Sharma's involvement had been found in about 26 or 27 cases, and PTI's 2025 report said he had at least 27 cases involving murder, kidnapping and robbery.
The larger numbers come from Sharma himself. In 2020 he told Delhi Police during questioning that he had lost count of the killings after he reached 50, PTI reported. Amar Ujala's 2020 report said he claimed to have killed more than 100 truck and taxi drivers and to have stopped counting after 100. The police officer who led the 2020 arrest said earlier media reports put the figure above 100, but that the police could not confirm it, because separate state police forces in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan had investigated the cases.
In 2025 PTI wrote that police believed he was responsible for more than 50 murders. Those figures are his own statements and police estimates. They are not court findings.
Sharma was arrested in 2004 in connection with both the kidney racket and the killings, PTI reported in 2025; ANI said the arrest was in Gurugram. His wife and children left him that year, after learning of his activities, according to PTI in 2020. Villagers later told Amar Ujala that he and his wife had divorced.
He was convicted in several kidnapping and murder cases, PTI reported in 2020, though only in six or seven of the murder cases from 2002 to 2004. In 2025 PTI said he had been sentenced to life imprisonment in seven murder cases across Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana, and that a Gurgaon court had also sentenced him to death in one case. ANI, quoting Gautam, said he had been convicted in six or seven cases, with life sentences in several and a death sentence in one.
By January 2020 he was serving a life sentence in the Central Jail in Jaipur for a murder case there, and had spent about 16 years in prison, PTI and ETV Bharat reported.
While he was being held in Bhondsi jail, according to Amar Ujala, he was linked to an extortion call. In 2014 police traced a call made to a businessman in Chharra to a public telephone near a court in Gurugram, and found that Sharma had made it while being taken from Bhondsi jail to a hearing. Investigators also learned that his wife had visited him in jail and brought him food, the paper reported.
Sharma was released on 20 days' parole in January 2020, after about 16 years in jail; PTI's 2025 report gave the date as January 28, 2020. He did not go back.
Villagers in Purreni told Amar Ujala in 2025 that he came to the village in February 2020, stayed about half an hour and said he was on parole, and that he reported to the Chharra police station during his 20 days. He had come to sell his share of the family's ancestral land, which he did by a registered deed with local witnesses. Villagers said he spoke of helping others and did not seem like a criminal.
After the parole ran out he stayed for a while in his native village and then, in early March 2020, moved to Delhi, police said. He lived first in Mohan Garden and then in Baprola, on the city's outskirts. There he married a widow, according to PTI and Gulf News; EastMojo reported that he married a distant relative. He went into the property business, and when he was caught he was said to be acting as a go-between in the sale of a commercial building in Connaught Place to a property dealer from Jaipur.
Jaipur police were looking for him in a case under the Rajasthan Prisons Act of 2015, registered in Jaipur, ETV Bharat reported. Delhi Police's Crime Branch received a tip that he was hiding in Baprola. Amar Ujala reported that Inspector Ram Manohar got the information on July 28, 2020, and that a team led by Sub-Inspector Shyam Bihari Saran made the arrest. The deputy commissioner of police for the Crime Branch, Rakesh Paweriya, announced it.
The reports differ on the day. PTI, carried by ThePrint and The Wire, said he was arrested on Tuesday, July 28, 2020. Gulf News and Alt News gave July 29, and Amar Ujala reported that the arrest came on a Wednesday.
He was questioned from Tuesday into Wednesday morning. Police described him as calm and cooperative and said he disclosed his past crimes himself, PTI reported. Amar Ujala's account was that he first tried to mislead the officers and confessed after Delhi Police contacted the Jaipur police for his background. Jaipur police were told of the arrest and were to take custody of him through the court.
In the days after the 2020 arrest, posts on Facebook and Twitter claimed that a doctor named Devendra Sharma had been arrested for removing kidneys from healthy people after falsely declaring them positive for COVID-19, and that he had killed more than 100 people. One post, by a politician from Uttar Pradesh, was shared more than 500 times. The fact-checking site Alt News examined the claim on August 5, 2020, and rated it false. Paweriya told Alt News: "There is no COVID-19 angle to Sharma's case." The kidney image in the posts came from an unrelated news article about a medical case, Alt News found.
By 2023 Sharma was serving a life sentence in Tihar Jail in Delhi. In June 2023 he was granted two months' parole in one of his Delhi cases, PTI reported. He disappeared after August 3, 2023. The Tribune reported that parole had been granted again in June 2023 and that he did not surrender, and that he was serving multiple life sentences when he left.
He told police after his capture that he had jumped parole intending never to return to jail, Gautam said.
For about two years Sharma lived as a holy man in Rajasthan. The Tribune put his time at the ashram at 24 months. He used the name Dayadas, according to Rajasthan Patrika; IANS reported the name as Sant Dayadas Maharaj and described him as a self-styled godman at a temple in Dausa district.
Patrika reported that he ran an illegal clinic at the ashram, admitting patients and giving drips and injections, and that treatment packages cost 20,000 to 50,000 rupees. A patient from Sikandra told the paper that he had paid 20,500 rupees about a month earlier for treatment of his wife's pain, with no improvement. Medicines were sent from Jaipur on a roadways bus, and the drivers handed the packages over at the temple, Patrika and IANS reported.
IANS reported that he won local people's trust with religious discourses, Ayurvedic treatments and spiritual counseling, and that he appeared at public events with local politicians. Officials were surprised to find that he had installed air conditioning, water purifiers, a cooler, wireless internet and closed-circuit cameras at the temple. "We never imagined a serial killer was living among us," a local resident told IANS.
He also raised 10 to 15 lakh rupees from the public for an old-age home, Patrika reported, and villagers protested against any police seizure of the money, saying it had come from public donations and not from him. Local officials told the paper they had known nothing of the clinic and would look into it.
The Crime Branch spent about six months on the search, police said. Officers went back to Delhi, Aligarh, Jaipur, Agra and Prayagraj and activated informants, but for months they had no solid leads, the Tribune reported. Then, Gautam said, police "finally got a whisper" about a suspected priest in Dausa. Officers moved in quietly and camped near the ashram, blending in as curious devotees.
Delhi Police arrested him at the ashram, where he was posing as a priest under a false identity, and announced the arrest on May 20, 2025, saying it had taken place the day before. A circle officer of the Rajasthan police in Bandikui told Patrika that the man was a suspect wanted by Delhi Police and that such operations happen regularly. ANI reported that after the arrest he was handed over to jail authorities.
After the arrest the Aligarh rural superintendent of police, Amrit Jain, told Amar Ujala that his officers were collecting information about Sharma, including where his family was, and checking property records to find how much wealth he had built up through crime. The village land, Jain said, had already been sold.
On June 14, 2025, the Crime Branch arrested a 59-year-old man from Aligarh district who, police said, had been a key member of Sharma's gang, PTI reported. He had been declared a proclaimed offender and was wanted in a 2004 Delhi case of murder, kidnapping, causing disappearance of evidence and criminal conspiracy. Police said he had been traced across Aligarh, Jaipur and Delhi after Sharma's questioning, and found living under a false identity in an isolated room and working as a security guard.
According to his own account under questioning, the man joined the gang in 2003 after a personal dispute and took part in killings, mostly of truck and taxi drivers. In 2007, police said, he had been arrested in a Jaipur murder case under a false name and sentenced to life imprisonment; he served 14 years without revealing who he was, and was released on bail in 2021. Police said he had a criminal history of 12 cases and was wanted in four more murder cases in Delhi and Gurugram.
As of May 21, 2025, ANI reported that Sharma had been handed over to jail authorities after his arrest in Dausa. PTI's June 15, 2025 report described him as convicted in multiple murder cases, serving life sentences in seven of them, with a death sentence in one Gurgaon case.
The number of killings. The figure of more than 50 is what Sharma told police. The figure of more than 100 appeared in media reports that police said in 2020 they could not confirm, and in his own claim to police as reported by Amar Ujala in 2020. The courts convicted him in six or seven murder cases, according to police, or seven, according to PTI in 2025. Police records cited by the Tribune link him to at least 21 drivers.
The kidney trade and the killings. Delhi Police statements quoted by PTI and ANI describe the killings of drivers as robberies for their vehicles, and the kidney transplant racket as a separate enterprise.
The COVID-19 claim. The 2020 social media claim that he removed kidneys from people falsely declared to have COVID-19 was rated false by Alt News, and the Delhi Police officer in charge of his arrest said the case had no COVID-19 link.
Birthplace and early dates. Sharma is described as being from Purreni village in Aligarh district, but IANS reported that he was born in Siwan, Bihar. The start of his clinic is given as Jaipur in 1984 by PTI in 2020 and as Bandikui in 1985 by IANS in 2025. The gas dealership loss is put in 1992 by PTI in 2020 and in 1994 by other police accounts. The kidney trade is dated from 1994 in 2020 reports and from 1998 in 2025 reports.
The ashram. IANS named the temple as being in a village called Gulisa, in Dausa district; Patrika placed the temple in Gudhakatla.
1984: BAMS degree, Siwan, Bihar (degree year per ANI); clinic in Jaipur, per PTI in 2020.
1985: Janata Clinic opened at Bandikui, Rajasthan, per IANS; run for 11 years.
1992 or 1994: loses 11 lakh rupees in a gas dealership scheme.
1995: fake gas agency set up in Chharra village, Aligarh district; arrested about a year and a half later.
1994 or 1998 to 2004: illegal kidney transplant racket, by police account; he claims more than 125 transplants.
2001: second fake gas agency, in Amroha; arrested again.
2002 to 2004: killings of taxi and truck drivers for which he was convicted.
2004: arrested in the Gurgaon kidney racket case and over the killings; his wife and children leave him.
Later years: convicted in six or seven murder cases in Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana; life sentences, and a death sentence from a Gurgaon court in one case.
2014: an extortion call made while he was being taken from Bhondsi jail to court is traced to him, per Amar Ujala.
January 2020: serving a life sentence in Central Jail, Jaipur; released on 20 days' parole (January 28, per PTI in 2025) after about 16 years in jail; does not return.
February 2020: visits his home village and sells his share of family land.
Early March 2020: moves to Delhi; lives in Mohan Garden, then Baprola.
July 28 or 29, 2020: arrested by the Delhi Police Crime Branch in Baprola.
August 5, 2020: Alt News rates a COVID-19 kidney claim about him false.
June 2023: serving a life sentence in Tihar Jail; granted two months' parole.
After August 3, 2023: fails to return.
About two years to May 2025: lives as Dayadas at a temple ashram in Dausa district, Rajasthan.
May 2025: arrested at the ashram; arrest announced May 20, 2025; handed over to jail authorities.
June 14, 2025: a gang associate wanted since 2004 is arrested.