BERHAMPUR: A 29-year-old man, impersonating as a doctor and treating patients at a clinic without an authorised degree, in Sanakhemundi block of Ganjam district was arrested on Monday. The accused Subhrajit Panda of Sandha village in Parjang block of Dhenkanal district was running a clinic at Dengausta Chowk.
According to police, Panda was nabbed after one Simanchal Sahu of Chanameri village filed a complaint against him with Digapahandi police on July 15 alleging that he had taken his mother to Panda’s clinic where he prescribed medicines and injections. But after she was administered the injections, it adversely affected her and she became critical. She was taken to MKCGMCH in Berhampur and then referred to AIIMS Bhubaneswar as her condition deteriorated.
Based on the complaint, we registered a case and raided the doctor’s clinic at Dengausta Chowk and Nayabazar in Cuttack, the residence and the parental home in Dhenkanal, said Digapahandi IIC, Dipti Ranjan Behera. “During the investigation, police recovered several fake certificates and other documents from the clinic at Dengausta Chowk. The accused has been arrested and forwarded to court on Monday,” said Behera.
Berhampur SP Sarvana Vivek M said when police interrogated Panda, he failed to give satisfactory answers regarding his MBBS degree and registration number. The medical degree certificate of Panda was found to be fake. Further verification revealed that Panda, completing Plus-II, prepared a fake medical degree and opened a clinic at Cuttack, around six years back.
He gathered information from various medical representatives who visited him and used this knowledge to treat people. Later he closed the clinic and left for Hyderabad where he did B.Sc Microbiology and M.Sc Microbiology, the SP informed.
“Panda was arrested by Chilkagula Police in Telangana in February 2020 for attending a doctors’ meet posing as a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and later released on bail,” said the SP, adding, further investigation on.
Around six months back, he returned to Odisha, and revived his clinic at Nayabazar in Cuttack and Dengausta Chowk, posing as a specialist who has completed his education at AIIMS Delhi with a degree from a foreign university. He visited the clinic once a week and was charging ` 300 per patient, most being gullible rural people, police the SP informed.