In a horrific incident, a doctor from Satara district of Maharashtra, who was arrested last week for murdering an anganwadi worker, on Tuesday confessed to the police to killing five more people and burying most of their bodies at his farmhouse. According to the police, he also confessed that he killed them all by injecting a lethal overdose of medicine. Police suspect that illicit relations and greed for gold and money might have prompted Dr Santosh Pol, 42, to murder the five women and a man.
Dr Pol confessed to multiple murders when he was being interrogated for the death of Mangala Jedhe (47), president of Maharashtra Purva Prathmik Shikshika Sevika Sangh. While the police exhumed five bodies from his farmhouse, one body which was thrown away in Krishna river remains untraceable. Arrested on August 11, Dr Pol will remain in police custody till August 19.
Wai police inspector Vinayak Vetal said, “On June 15, Mangala Jedhe, a resident of Wai, left Satara to visit her daughter in Pune. But she went missing in between. Following this, her husband Bhiku Jedhe registered a missing complaint with us. During probe, their relatives informed us that before her disappearance, Mangala was in constant touch with Dr Santosh Pol.”
He further said, “Based on relatives’ version, Pol’s assistant Jyoti Mandhare was interrogated, who confessed to killing Jedhe and burying her near Pol’s poultry farm, 13 kms away from Wai. Pol, who was absconding after the incident, was arrested in Mumbai on August 11.”
“During investigation on Tuesday, Pol revealed that besides Jedhe, he had killed five more people. They were identified as Surekha Chikane, Vanita Gaikwad, Jagabai Pol, Nathamal Bhandari and Salma Shaikh, whom Pol had killed on April 20, 2003, August, 12, 2006, August 13, 2010, July 13, 2015, and January 17, 2016 respectively. Pol buried Chikane’s body at a plot in his house and bodies of Jedhe, Shaikh, Pol and Bhandari at his poultry farm. He threw Gaikwad’s body in Krishna river.”
“Pol was in a relationship with both Jedhe and Mandhare. However, Jedhe was insisting that he end his relationship with Mandhare. That could have prompted Mandhare and Pol to kill Jedhe,” a police said on the condition of anonymity.
