Police bust fake hospital operating in GK-1, 4 held

When Jai Narayan was diagnosed with gall bladder stones at Agarwal Medical Centre last month, no one conducted his chest X-Ray, ultrasound, ECG, and a slew of bloods tests before wheeling him in for a surgery. (The family had come with ultrasound and X-Ray to show it to the doctor)

- Hemani Bhandari

Technician working as doctor arrested as Delhi clinic busted

Minutes later, Dr Neeraj Agarwal, the proprietor of the centre located at Greater Kailash-I in south Delhi, told his brother Major Basoya that the 42-year-old had died mid-surgery, allegedly due to a cardiac arrest.

“When I went inside the operation theatre, I saw my brother, dead on a stretcher, still in the clothes he wore from home. The doctors too were not in scrubs. The operation theatre was tiny and dirty, and there was no ventilator,” wrote Basoya, 46, in his complaint to the Delhi Police dated October 28.

In September 2022, two people had died in similar circumstances at the centre, after which an FIR was filed in one case — against unknown people under Indian Penal Code sections 304 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 196 (using evidence known to be false), 197 (issuing false certificate), 198 (using false certificate), 201 (obstruction of evidence), and 120B (criminal conspiracy).

On Tuesday, the Delhi Police arrested four people, including Dr Neeraj — who holds only an MBBS degree — along with his wife Pooja, who addressed herself as a doctor but doesn’t hold a medical degree, and Mahender Singh, a lab technician who posed as a doctor. Dr Jaspreet Singh, an MBBS who works in Sarvodaya hospital, allegedly prepared fake surgery notes and has also been arrested, said deputy commissioner of police (south) Chandan Chowdhary.