Santosh Pol is a man from Satara district in Maharashtra, India, whom police accuse of killing six people between 2003 and 2016. He was arrested in August 2016, charged, and held in custody while the case went to trial. As of the latest hearing on record, in June 2025, the trial had not concluded. He has not been convicted of any of the six deaths.
Pol came from Dhom, a village near the town of Wai in Satara district. His father worked in Mumbai, and the family was poor. The qualification he held was a degree in electrohomeopathy, a course long derecognized in Maharashtra. Around the turn of the century he began to practice as a doctor, first in a village near Dhom, then in Dhom and later in Wai. He styled himself a doctor, and after his arrest police said they were checking whether his degree was genuine.
From 2007 to 2015 he held a night-duty job at a hospital in Wai. He was removed from it in 2015 after he organized a union and threatened a strike over pay. He was also elected unopposed to the village council at Dhom. Local people and officials knew him as someone who filed complaints under the anti-corruption and right-to-information laws, and police and minor officials in Wai were said to be wary of him. At the time of the events that led to his arrest, a non-bailable warrant was outstanding against him in an unrelated matter.
The case that exposed him began with the death of Mangala Jedhe, who died on June 16, 2016. Her family pressed for an inquiry by the state Criminal Investigation Department. Police later said that she had been in regular contact with Pol and that she had threatened to expose his activities.
Investigators traced a woman who had worked closely with Pol, J.M. She was arrested first, by the Local Crime Branch of Satara police, and she confessed. Police said she named Pol and described her own part in Jedhe's death. Pol was then arrested in Mumbai on or about August 11, 2016 (August 10 and August 13 are also given). He was taken to Wai, and on Sunday, August 14, 2016 he was produced before a local court, which remanded him to police custody until August 19. A magistrate's court in Satara later extended that remand to August 23.
Sandip Patil, the Superintendent of Police of Satara, gave the first public account. He said Pol had been arrested and then confessed to five more killings besides the death of Jedhe. Pol was said to have admitted that he and J.M. were responsible for Jedhe's death, and Padmakar Ghanvat, an officer at Wai police station, said Pol told police he had been in relationships with both women, and that Jedhe had threatened to expose him.
According to police, the six deaths and their dates were:
Surekha Chikane, May 20, 2003
Vanita Gaikwad, August 12, 2006
Jagabai Pol, a relative of Pol, August 13, 2010
Nathmal Bhandari, December 7, 2015
Salma Shaikh, January 17, 2016
Mangala Jedhe, June 16, 2016
These are six separate events in six separate years, with the last two within five months of each other. Police described five of the six victims as women and one as a man.
Patil told reporters that the motive was probably greed for gold and money together with illicit relationships. In later statements he said that Pol was mentally stable and had acted deliberately, and that police could not rely blindly on a confession and had to corroborate it. Police also said they would examine other cases in and around Wai since 2003, including whether he was linked to as many as 20 to 25 other deaths there; no further charges are on record.
At first Pol was charged with kidnapping and murder in connection with Jedhe. Police registered further cases for the other deaths on the strength of his statements. The statutory sections invoked are not on record. By December 7, 2016, Wai police had filed three charge sheets and expected to file the remaining three later in the month, and both Pol and J.M. were in custody. The Senior Inspector at Wai, Vinayak Vetal, had led the inquiry for about five months. Satara's Superintendent of Police announced that Ujjwal Nikam, a prominent public prosecutor, would act as Special Public Prosecutor. Vetal said regular hearings were likely to begin around February 2017.
The court that first took the charge sheets is not on record. By January 2020 the case was being heard in the Satara district court, before District Judge N. L. More.
By August 21, 2016, Pol had written a letter congratulating police on his arrest, in which he blamed corrupt officials and what he called a dormant society for the period from 2003 to 2016.
J.M. was the second accused. In Indian criminal procedure an accomplice can be granted a pardon on condition that she gives full evidence for the prosecution, and she then gives evidence as an approver. By 2020 J.M. was the prosecution's approver.
Her evidence began on January 16, 2020 at the Satara district court. On the next day she was unwell and was allowed a chair and water, and the court asked her to bring her medicines to the next hearing. She told the court that Pol committed three of the six killings in her presence, those of Mangala Jedhe, Salma Shaikh and Nathmal Bhandari, and that he told her he had committed the other three before she met him: Surekha Chikane, Vanita Gaikwad and Jagabai Pol. She said the motive in the cases she knew was gold and money. Special Public Prosecutor Nikam appeared for the state.
On December 19, 2020 she gave evidence again. Pol's lawyer, Shrikant Hutgikar, cross-examined her. The hearing was adjourned when court time ended, to January 2, 2021, and police were deployed heavily outside the court.
Cross-examination continued in January 2021. On January 21, 2021, she briefly lost consciousness in the witness box; the court took a break of 15 minutes and resumed when she said she was well. Because of pandemic precautions, only those connected to the case were admitted. At a hearing in late January 2021 she answered many questions about call records, the dates of police panchnamas and how many killings Pol had committed by saying that she did not know or could not remember. The cross-examination was still not complete, and the next hearing was set for February 25.
In September 2022 the Satara district court granted J.M. bail for one year, with conditions, on medical grounds, while the hearing of the Wai case went on. The conditions are not on record.
By June 2025 the case, known locally as the Dhom case, had been before the courts for about nine years. On June 17, 2025 a court at Wai, sitting before Additional District Judge R. N. Mehere, directed that the trial be run faster. The court noted that the case had been delayed for several reasons and ordered hearings every two days; the next was fixed for June 19. Pol was brought to court under heavy police security. J.M., who had held temporary bail on medical grounds and for her examination, had returned to court after that bail ran out and was sent to judicial custody. Her cross-examination in the Bhandari and Shaikh case was complete, and Pol's lawyers were cross-examining her in the Jedhe case. Nikam appeared as Special Public Prosecutor.
No verdict, sentence or acquittal is on record for any of the six deaths. Whether Pol has applied for bail, and with what result, is not on record, and his custody after June 2025 is not on record.
Police named six people. Surekha Chikane was the first, in May 2003, and police gave gold as the reason. Vanita Gaikwad followed in August 2006; police did not state a motive for her death. Jagabai Pol was a relative of Pol, and police said the motive was financial gain; she died in August 2010. Nathmal Bhandari died on December 7, 2015, and police gave gold as the reason. Salma Shaikh died on January 17, 2016, and police said Pol feared she would reveal the earlier death. Mangala Jedhe died on June 16, 2016, and her death led to the arrests.
Only those six deaths are charged on the record.
Every killing other than that of Mangala Jedhe rests on Pol's alleged statements to police, which Patil himself said needed corroboration. Whether the confessions were later retracted is not on record.
The year of Vanita Gaikwad's death is given as 2006 in the police chronology and as 2008 elsewhere.
The arrest date is given as August 11, 2016, and also as August 10 and August 13.
Pol's age in 2016 is given as 41, 42 or 48; Jedhe's age as 47 or 49.
The possibility of other victims, put at 20 to 25 people in Wai since 2003, was a line of police inquiry in 2016, not a charge.
May 20, 2003: Surekha Chikane dies (police chronology).
August 12, 2006: Vanita Gaikwad dies (police chronology).
August 13, 2010: Jagabai Pol dies (police chronology).
December 7, 2015: Nathmal Bhandari dies (police chronology).
January 17, 2016: Salma Shaikh dies (police chronology).
June 16, 2016: Mangala Jedhe dies.
August 11, 2016: Pol arrested in Mumbai.
August 14, 2016: produced before a local court; police custody until August 19.
August 2016: remand extended to August 23.
December 7, 2016: three charge sheets filed; three more expected.
January 16, 2020: the approver begins her evidence at the Satara district court.
December 19, 2020: evidence and cross-examination continue.
January 2021: cross-examination of the approver continues.
September 30, 2022: bail for one year granted to the approver.
June 17, 2025: a court at Wai orders the trial to be expedited; hearings every two days.