Dr Death: More families lodge missing complaints

Even as Dr Santosh Pol, dubbed ‘Dr Death’, has confessed to killing six people, that number may increase. Three more families have registered complaints with the police about their family members missing. They are of the opinion that their relatives were in touch with Pol before going missing.

“Relatives of Vilas Vishnu Dhage, missing since 2001, Dipali Krushna Sanas, who missing since 2002, and Mahadev Chikane, who has been missing since 2012, have approached the police. We are investigating the case. Beside that, we are also making a list of all the missing people across Satara district and looking into whether they had any connection with Pol,” said superintendent of police Sandip Patil.

“The police has filed an FIR against Pol and slapped a case against him under Indian Penal Code sections 302 for punishment for murder, 364 for kidnapping for the purpose of murder, 365 for kidnapping wrongfully to confine, and 120 B for punishment for criminal conspiracy,” said Shankar Panchal, assistant police inspector, Satara.

While Pol is in police custody till August 19, cops — with the help of the cases mentioned earlier — will try and get his custody extended.

A team of doctors from KEM Hospital in Mumbai has reached Wai to analyse and conduct DNA tests of four skeletons exhumed from Pol’s farmhouse.

Pol’s letter to the SP Meanwhile, Pol has given the incident a twist by sending an emotional letter to the Superintendent of Police.

In it, he says: “First of all, I want to salute you. You must be curious why I have committed these crimes This is the question I have been asking since 2003 till 2016 to corrupt officials and a dead society. But it is Vinayak Vetal, police inspector, Wai, who has been proved to be brave and solved the case.”

Reacting to the letter, SP Patil said, “He meant to say that officials in the police who were in service between 2003 and 2016 were corrupt and society has been dead. That is why nobody had ever come to know that he has committed the six murders. He wants to convey the message that he is a talented person and was ahead of the police all these years. Basically, he is now trapped and has nothing say or do. Hence, he is now trying to divert the attention of the police. Basically, he is a sharp person.”