Police arrest fake doctor in Odisha’s Ganjam district

Berhampur (Odisha), Jul 17 (PTI) A 29-year-old man, who posed as an orthopedic and spine surgery specialist and treated patients by opening a clinic at Dengausta under Ganjam district’s Digapahandi police station limits, was arrested on Monday.
    The accused identified as Subrajit Panda, a resident of Hindol Road in Dhenkanal district, was earlier arrested by Hyderabad police on February 8, 2020 for impersonating as a doctor and team member of the World Health Organisation (WHO), police said.
    After being released on bail, Panda set up a clinic at Ranihat, Cuttack, and visited Dengausta and Aska in Ganjam district as a consultant doctor two days a month and collected money from patients, police said.
    Acting on a complaint, police visited his clinic at Dengausta and found his medical degrees to be fake, Berhampur SP Saravana Vivek M said.
    Panda was an under-graduate student of microbiology, but impersonated himself as an orthopedic and spine surgery specialist having a German degree, the SP said.
    During verification of his rented house and clinic in Cuttack, he could not produce a valid registration number.          The foreign certificate, which he had produced, was found to be fake, he said.
    The matter came to light after a person identified as Simanchal Sahu of Chhanameri on Saturday lodged a complaint with police at Digapahandi claiming Panda was not a qualified doctor.
    Sahu claimed that when Panda treated his grandmother for a fracture, her condition deteriorated after consuming the medicines that he allegedly prescribed.
    Doctors in MKCG Medical College and Hospital here raised doubts about Panda after seeing the medicines prescribed by him.
    Based on Sahu's complaint, police registered a case against Panda under different sections of the IPC and Orissa Medical Registration Act and Orissa Clinical Registration Act, police said.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)