The Satara police on late Wednesday confirmed they were probing three more missing persons cases which may have been linked to ‘death doctor’ Santosh Pol, who has confessed to killing six people, including five women, since 2003. Among the missing persons registered in Wai since 2003, at least three of them had contact with the murderer in some form, said the police. They added that there is a strong probability that Pol’s next victim would have been his nurse, Jyothi Mandre, who collaborated with him to murder a local aanganwadi worker Mangal Jedhe.
While probing the case, call data records had revealed that the last caller to Ms. Jedhe’s phone was Ms. Mandre. When she was questioned, she revealed Pol’s hideout in Mumbai to the police. “As Mandre was witness to the murder, it is very likely that she could have been his next victim,” said Sandip Patil, Superindent of Police, Satara.
Investigators chanced upon an open pit that Pol had dug near his two-acre poultry farm in Dhom village, close to the spot where four of the bodies of his victims were recovered; they say it could have been intended for Mandre.
During the investigation, the picture that has emerged is that of Pol was unscrupulous, ruthless, yet highly efficient, with no qualms about cold-bloodedly disposing of his quarry.
“All [the] murders were premeditated. While there could be different angles to each, we feel there may have been a financial motive in each case. He was a highly crafty operator,” said Special Inspector General of Police (Kolhapur range) Vishwas Nangre-Patil.
Pol was notorious in the area and many, including the police, were wary of tangling with him. The police say he posed as a right to information activist for a while, unravelling local corruption cases, even accusing a police officer of graft. He threatened to use RTI queries against them while maintaining cordial relations with the anti-corruption bureau.
According to Dr. Vidyadhar Ghotwadekar, who ran a private clinic in Wai where Pol worked, the accused was not a qualified medical practitioner. “He had enrolled in a bachelor degree course in electropathy and medicine before it was officially derecognised.”
Pol worked at the clinic for more than seven years, and was sacked in 2015 after he led a hospital strike. Last month, the clinic filed a case against him for theft of an ambulance. The police are probing whether the ambulance was used in Pol’s crimes.
