Man held for selling fake medical degrees in C'garh

A 52-year-old man was arrested here for allegedly selling fake certificates of medical degree and diploma courses, police said on Wednesday.

The accused, identified as Shailendra Kumar Gwarle, used to target mostly unemployed youths from villages and sell forged degrees of BAMS (Bachelor of Ayurveda Medicine and Surgery), DAMS (Diploma in Ayurveda Medical Science) and MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) through his fake institute since 2013.

He would generally charge up to Rs 50,000 for each certificate, they said.

"Gwarle was arrested from Sundar Nagar area here on Tuesday night," Raipur Additional Superintendent of Police Prafull Thakur said in a press conference here.

Gwarle is a resident of Amleshwar village in Durg district, located a few kms away from Raipur.

His act came to light after a victim, Janakdas, a native of Dindori district in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, recently lodged a complaint against him at Civil Lines Police station here for providing fake DAMS diploma to him at Rs 40,000, he said.

"Gwarle was allegedly operating a fake medical institute named 'Indian Alternative Medical College Education Institute' in Pandri area of Raipur since 2013, but shut it down in 2015," Thakur said, adding that the institute was not affiliated to any medical university or institution.

According to the complainant, he had met Gwarle in 2013 at his institute in Raipur through two persons- Prakash Das and Shravan Kumar of Kabeerdham district in the state, of his acquaintance.

Prakash and Shravan had then obtained DAMS diplomas from Gwarle's institute at Rs 45,000 for each. Janakdas recently contacted the accused to get DAMS diploma for himself, he said.

Accordingly, the accused sold a similar diploma certificate to Janakdas at Rs 40,000 on October 6. However, the victim later realised that the document was fake and approached the police.

Police launched a probe and recovered a cash of Rs 40,000, a motorcycle, 11 mobile phones and fake degree certificates from the accused, Thakur said, adding that he was later arrested.

"We are gathering more information on the number of fake degrees he had sold to people. We will also approach such degree holders after identifying them to know whether they had any inkling about the fake degrees," he said.

Police suspect that many people could be practising medicine illegally at several places in the state on the basis of fake medical degrees and they are likely to be identified during the probe.