Caught for one alleged murder, 'doctor' spills the beans on five other killings.
When the Satara police arrested Santosh Pol, a 41-year-old medical practitioner on Saturday, for the alleged murder of an anganwadi worker, little did they know that they had netted a serial killer.
On June 16, the Maharashtra Purva Prathmik Shikshika Sevika Sangh filed a complaint that its president and anganwadi worker Mangala Jedhe had gone missing.
The search for the culprit led the police to Dadar and Pol was arrested. During interrogation, Pol confessed that he had killed five more – four women and a man. He killed all six by giving them lethal injections and buried four of them at his farmhouse in Wai.
The police say financial gains seem to the motive. Psychiatrists called him a psychopath. Jedhe was in the know of Pol's murders and had even threatened to expose him.
Pol and his associate, nurse Jyoti Mandre (24), allegedly kidnapped Jedhe while she was waiting at the Wai bus depot. The two allegedly administered an overdose of a lethal medicine to Mandre the next day and buried the body at an isolated spot in the farmhouse.
Pol had an illicit affair with both Jedhe and Mandre, but when Jedhe decided to expose Pol about the previous murders, he decided to kill her.
What helped the police to crack the case was Jedhe's cell phone. It remained active even after she went missing on June 16. "When we tracked her number, we found that she was travelling to various cities in Maharashtra. Simultaneously, another number was found to be active on all those locations where Jedhe's number was tracked and that was identified to be Mandre's number," said Sandip Patil, superintendent of police, Satara.
Others allegedly murdered by Pol are Salma Shaikh, Jagabai Pol, Surekha Chikane, Vanita Gaikwad and Nathmal Bhandari.
Police have exhumed the remains of Jedhe and three others from the Wai farmhouse. One victim's (Chikane) remains were found at his house in Satara. Pol said that he threw the body of Vanita Gaikwad into the Krishna river.
"He has confessed to killing all of them by administering lethal doses of injections", said police inspector Padmakar Ghanvat.
Jedhe and Pol knew each other since 1998 and the two were in an illicit relationship. Jedhe was a witness when Pol first killed Chikane and others.
All victims went missing between 2013 and 2016. Pol is in police custody till August 19. According to psychiatrist Dr Harish Shetty, "This is a clear case of cold, calculated murder and his traits look similar to those of any other psychopath. He should be tried like a criminal."
Pol has been booked under Section 302 for murder, 201 for causing disappearance of evidence and 34 of the Indian Penal Code.
The Indian Medical Association has said that Pol is not a doctor. "As soon as we came to know about the news, we checked his credentials and found that he is not a doctor," IMA president Dr Jayesh Lele said. Post-mortem will now be conducted on the exhumed body.
How did he kill the victims?
Pol injected his victims with the drug known as Scoline or Suxamethonium chloride. It is a medication used to induce muscle relaxation and short-term paralysis.
It is sometimes used in combination with pain medications and sedatives for euthanasia and for immobilising horses.
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