Another fake doctor arrested in Bengal, over 500 under scanner: CID

The West Bengal Police's CID on Monday arrested another fake doctor from the state's Howrah district, and said over 500 medical practitioners were under the scanner over their credentials.

The total number of arrests in the case now stood at seven, an officer said. Besides another arrest was made by the Howrah city police.

"We have arrested a person named Ramashankar Singh from Howrah's Baduria on Monday for faking his doctor's degree and acting as a private medical practitioner," said an officer from CID's Economic Offences Department.

Singh, who posed as a doctor for nearly five years, claimed during interrogation that he had only cleared his higher secondary examination, the officer said.

"He has confessed that he studied till Higher Secondary. However, that is also subject to be verified. We have seized several fake certificates from him.

"The CID has more 500 doctors in the state under their scanner. Patient's complaints and reports of wrong treatment are being closely watched," he added.

On Saturday, CID officers arrested "gastroenterologist" Ajay Tewary, who had been treating patients in renowned corporate hospital Kothari Medical Centre for over two decades by submitting an allegedly bogus registration number and MBBS degree.

Tewary's letterhead claims that he is a consultant gastroenterologist with the Kothari Medical Centre, while his name figures on the hospital's website at the top of its list of specialists in the gastro-medicine department as an "interventional endoscopist".

On questioning, Tewary claimed he did a homoeopathic course from Assam and only possesses a B.Com Honours degree.

The CID have arrested seven fake doctors in the last one month on the charges of cheating and forgery of important documents.

Last week, the CID had rounded up physician Naren Pandey, who passed himself off as an allergy and asthma specialist in one of the city's top private clinics Bellevue Clinic. In his Facebook profile, Pandey claims he studied at Xinjiang Medical University, but according to CID officers, he was a unani doctor and had neither specialisation in allergy and asthma nor an MBBS degree.

On Friday, Howrah city police had arrested a medical practitioner Subhendu Bhattacharya, following complaint from another doctor that Bhattacharya was using his registration number.

The fake doctor racket came to the fore on May 3 when the CID arrested two practitioners employed in government-run hospitals in the northern Bengal's Alipurduar and North Dinajpur districts. Another doctor possessing a bogus MBBS degree was then taken into custody from Jalpaiguri district's Dhumpara.

On May 25, Rameshchandra Baidya, a member of the 'Alternative Medical Council Calcutta', was arrested for his alleged involvement in supplying fake certificates.

--IANS

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