Silchar: Meet Pulok Malakar, a man who performed over 50 Caesarean sections (C-Sections) and several other complex gynaecological surgeries over the last decade.
Nothing surprising for a gynaecologist, you would say, till being told that Malakar is no gynaecologist. In fact, he is not even a doctor.
This real-life ‘Munnabhai MBBS’ was arrested from Assam’s Silchar from inside an operation theatre, even as he was performing a C-Section. The police checked his degrees and found all of them to be fake.
Malakar now joins the long list of such frauds from across the country. In April, a man named Narendra Vikramaditya Yadav was arrested from Uttar Pradesh for posing as UK-based cardiologist Dr John Camm and performing angioplasties at a hospital in Damoh in Madhya Pradesh. Of the 12 patients he carried out the angioplasties upon, five died, two of them when the procedure was underway. It is still not known how many of Malakar’s patients survived.
Malakar, a resident of Assam’s Sribhumi, was known as a gynaecologist in the city and performed surgeries at two private hospitals, the police said. He was produced before a court on Monday and remanded to police custody for five days.
“We got information about him and started an investigation. After verification of all the documents, we found that all his certificates are fake. He was a fake medical practitioner and was running the business for many years,” Cachar SP Numal Mahatta said.
Assam has launched a massive crackdown against fake doctors. The Himanta Biswa Sarma-led government, in January this year, formed a special unit – the anti-quackery and vigilance cell – which works in close coordination with the state police. The unit has filed so far more than 10 cases against practising quacks and fake doctors.
The quacks in the state are largely targeting lower and middle-income groups in rural and urban areas, officials said.
