The police on Friday discovered the sixth body near the house of Dr Santosh Pol after he confessed to having buried the corpse at his house. Dr Pol had earlier told the police that he had thrown the body of Vanita Gaikwad into the Krishna river on August 2012.
“The police had carried out search operations at villages along the Krishna river around Wai block after Pol’s claim that body was thrown in the river, but we could not find Gaikwad’s body. Therefore, we interrogated Pol again, and he finally confessed that Gaikwad’s body was buried at his house in Dhom,” said Sandip Patil, superintendent of police, Satara.
The police later dug up an area near a fig tree at Dr Pol’s house, where they discovered the skeleton.
“We had to dig for a long time as the body was buried very deep beneath the earth,” Mr Patil added.
Gaikwad, who was HIV positive, resided near Pol’s house. She disappeared on Raksha Bandhan in August 2012. Her two daughters now reside in Pune.
Now the newly discovered skeleton along with four skeletons that were found earlier will be sent to a team of forensic experts in Mumbai. “It will take at least a month to get DNA reports and till then we cannot profess to know whose bodies these are,” an official said.
Meanwhile, the police got the custody of Dr Pol extended till August 25 by the Wai junior magistrate, first class. Earlier, the police had exhumed four dead bodies from the doctor’s farmhouse and one from the courtyard of his house.
Dr Pol was caught after the police cracked the case of a local aaganwadi worker, a woman who worked at a state-run creche. The woman, Mangal Jedhe, had allegedly warned Dr Pol that she would expose his various criminal activities.
According to the police, Dr Pol and a female nurse kidnapped the woman at a bus stand, took her to his farmhouse, killed her the next day using a lethal injection, and buried her at the farmhouse. The nurse reportedly told the police about the killing. Dr Pol was arrested last Saturday. The motive behind the murders is still not known, the police said.
Meanwhile, many more families, whose members have gone missing, approached the police on Thursday suspecting Dr Pol’s role in the disappearance of their dear ones. However, sources from the Wai police said they still have not found any evidence related to three new complaints.
