AHMEDABAD: A 42-year-old man, Navalsinh Chavda, arrested by Gujarat police for attempted murder of a businessman, died in police custody Sunday reportedly due to sudden illness. Soon after his death, cops said Chavda, a ‘witch doctor’, had confessed to having killed 12 people, including his grandmother, mother, & an uncle. Police had secured his remand till Dec 10.
He was arrested on Dec 3 when he was about to kill a businessman at Sanand after promising to quadruple his money using tantrik rituals. Sunday, Chavda complained of chest pain and was rushed to hospital where he was declared dead. He used to run a cab service and a YouTube channel on ‘occult practices’.
DCP Shivam Verma said, “Chavda confessed to have committed several murders, 1 in Ahmedabad, 6 in Surendranagar (including 3 of his family), 3 in Rajkot and 1 each in Wankaner and Anjar.” He used to poison his victims with sodium nitrite dissolved in water. Ingesting high doses of the chemical, commonly used in dry cleaning, can induce a heart attack & cause death within 15-20 minutes, sources said.
Chavda would source the chemical from a lab in Surendranagar. He learnt its lethal effects from another tantrik, the source said. Chavda’s charade was exposed by Jigar Gohil, his taxi business partner and the brother of one of his victims, Vivek Gohil. Vivek was believed to have died in a road accident in Ahmedabad in Aug 2021, but postmortem indicated poisoning as cause of death.
Chavda claimed to possess supernatural powers. He had set up a temple in Surendranagar where he allegedly practised black magic and shot videos for his channel.