The life of Dr Death Santosh Pol

On August 19, dressed in a blue shirt and a pair of black trousers, Santosh Pol (42) stood calmly at his home in village Dhom near Wai, while the police and forensic team from the KEM hospital exhumed a body from the vicinity. Vanita Gaikwad had been killed in 2006, by Pol – now notorious as Dr Death. She was one of his six victims.

Pol had been arrested and charged with murder of six people – five women and a man – eight days earlier. He then went on to write an audacious letter to Wai senior police inspector Vinayak Vetal and the local crime branch team at Satara, congratulating them for managing to collect evidence against him and for eventually nabbing him.

"When I took charge at Wai police station in April this year, my predecessor warned me of Pol, saying he was a mischievous character and that I should be careful. I got first-hand experience of that in July, when a non-bailable warrant regarding a cheque-bounce case was issued against him. He tried his best to level various kinds of allegations against me and scare me off, but I managed to arrest him. Soon, the Mangal Jedhe missing case was registered and the investigation team found that Pol was involved," Vetal told dna.

Pol's trick to keep the local police and government officials away from his macabre crimes was to scare them off using anti-corruption traps. With the assistance of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, he managed to lay as many as 53-54 traps against several police and government officials. Pol also used to earn quick money by misusing the Right To Information Act against government officials, by extorting them.

Making of a criminal

Born on November 4, 1974, Pol spent his initial days in Bhandup. His father Gulabrao Pol worked with BEST as a conductor. After he retired, the family returned to Dhom village. Pol was in Class V at the time. According to his elder sister Sanjeevani Hagavane, he was brightest of the three siblings and had scored 86% in Physics-Chemistry-Biology in HSC. He went on to pursue Bachelor of Electropathy Medicine and Surgery (BEMS).

Pol's father died in 1993 and his mother Tarabai in February 2003. The same year in May, one year short of turning 30, Pol committed his first murder. He also got married in 2003. "I was married and lived close by. My younger brother was working in Pune then. Santosh lived alone in our parents' house and ran his dispensary. We never thought he could have committed such a heinous crime," said Hagavane.

Pol's first victim was Surekha Chikne, a 23-year-old mother of three. According to the police, he has confessed that he was romantically involved with her. "They had a relationship and he was about to get married to someone else. Chikne was pressurising him to elope with her. He then decided to get rid of her," said a police officer.

"He asked Chikne to come to his house with all her jewellery. When she went to meet him, he hit her on the head with a rod. He then strangulated her and buried her body in a pit dug in the backyard of his home," added the officer.

Pol got married the same year. While fingers were pointed towards him, he managed to divert the officials' attention by levelling corruption charges against the investigating officer.

He sold Chikne's gold jewellery, nearly 15 tolas, to a local jeweller. A police officer said this encouraged him to commit more crimes. Three years later in 2006, Vanita Gaikwad became his second victim. Police said Pol targeted vulnerable women facing problems in life. They either had no one supporting them or their husbands worked out of the village.

"Pol told us that Vanita was HIV+ and he was helping her with the treatment. She was also sweet-talked into getting her jewellery. He gave her a diazopam injection before strangulating her to death," said the officer. While exhuming her body, police also found syringes and an empty injection vial. The orange saree that she wore that day was intact with the skeletal remains, and now is a part of the forensic investigation.

Vanita lived less than 500m from Pol's home. Her relatives said she had stepped out of the house to celebrate Rakshabandhan with her brother but never returned. She is survived by two daughters, who now live in Pune.

Meanwhile, Pol continued to work at the Dr Ghotwadekar hospital and run his dispensaries in different villages of Wai. He turned into an RTI activist as well. If the police were to be believed, Pol managed to extort over Rs20 lakh from his victims. He was also a member of his village's gram panchayat between 2005 and 2010. Locals and police said that he used his position to scare people off.

Pol's third victim was Jagabai Pol, a distant relative from the Dhom village itself. Seema Pol, Jagabai's eldest of the four daughters, said, "A person had taken over our land illegally and Pol was helping us. When my mother went missing, we did not have the slightest suspicion on him, as he pretended to stand by us in the hour of crisis. We now regret trusting him blindly," said.

According to police sources, the rest of the three murders were done with only robbery as the motive. "He said he wanted to give a good education to his son. He had enrolled him in a school in Panchgani and the annual fee was Rs5 lakh," said an officer.

Among Pol's victims was a jeweller named Nathamal Bhandari, whom he killed in December 2015. Bhandari was suffering from a health problem and Pol befriended him on the pretext of treating him. "Dr Death first took him to Dr Gotwadekar hospital and then to his farmhouse for ECG. Pol then administered anaesthesia to him. Bhandari was also buried in Pol's farmhouse, who managed to get 20 tolas of gold this time," added the officer.

When people starting taking Pol's name in connection with all these crimes, his brother-in-law brought him to his Mumbai house, to keep him away from scrutiny, said Hagavane. His younger brother Deepak, who was living in their parents' house before the police sealed it, has now shifted to Hagavane's house with his wife and children. They have been house-bound since the police arrested Pol.

"We have not sent our son and daughter to school since the police arrested our brother. It will have a bad impact on them. We have not stepped out of our house either, as villagers look down upon us. Our life is nothing but hell now," said Deepak.

Netting the killer

A police officer said Pol's last victim – Mangal Jedhe – was known to him. "He says they were in a relationship between 1998 and 2003, after which they lost touch. Jedhe got in touch with him recently, as she had heard that he 'vanishes' people, and she wanted his help. She also needed some medical help for her daughter's delivery. In return, she promised to pay him Rs1.40 lakh. He had given her nurse Jyoti Mandhare's mobile phone and had asked her to call him only through that number," said the officer.

On the fateful day, Pol and Jedhe were supposed to leave for Pune. "He had called her to his farmhouse, but since a few people were partying nearby, they entered the house late. He convinced her to stay back. The next morning on June 16, Pol convinced Jedhe to put an intravenous catheter that is generally inserted in arms for administering medicines. While putting the line, he quickly gave her an anaesthesia injection called scoline," said a police officer.

Jedhe overdosed on the drug. Pol told police that till that time, nurse Mandhare was not aware of his intention. They both then buried her in his farmhouse. He asked Mandhare to leave for Pune with Jedhe's phone. "Pol said this is where he went wrong. He ended up giving the wrong phone to Mandhare. Moreover, Jedhe had called others besides Pol from Mandhare's phone. During police investigation, the phone call records helped us first question Mandhare, who later confessed. Then we finally managed to nab Pol," said the officer.

Pol and Mandhare are in judicial custody now. So far, during search operations at Pol's homes in Wai and Dhom, and a poultry farm also located in Dhom, police have found papers related to RTI, a spy camera pen, six mobiles phones, two vials of muscle relaxant succinylcholine chloride (SUCOL), three syringes, documents related to Pol's BEMS degree, multiple SIM cards, gold jewellery, among other things.