Panchkula: Fondness for high life among the rich and influential led the ninth class passed Sandip Sharma to start a hospital in Sector 20 here. He had never anticipated that the long arms of law would finally catch up with him.
Now, incarcerated in a police station, Sharma’s amazing story of fraud could well be similar to Munnabhai of Bollywood. He worked as a doctor at Karnal and Panchkula, interviewed many postgraduate doctors for employing them in his hospitals at Panchkula and Kurukshetra, and even swindled crores of rupees from banks in the name of his hospitals.
He was so well-connected and influential that a former SP of Panchkula even provided him security even as he was an accused in the bank dacoity at Allahabad Bank in Shahpur village near Ambala cantonment in 2004. How, he managed to receive the huge grants against holding the free medical camps was yet to be investigated, said sources in the police.
Sandip was arrested by a team of Haryana Crime Bureau from Chandigarh. The sources in the police said Sandip, who is very clever, kept on changing his hideouts frequently to dodge the police in cities, including Patiala, Kurukshetra, Delhi, Jaipur, and Chandigarh since January 30 when the police raided his hospital in Sector 20 at Panchkula on the complaint of a civil surgeon.
The investigations by the crime branch have revealed that Sandip had studied up to class nine in his village. He claimed to have passed the exams of 10+2 by open examination through an open school, however, there was nothing to verify it, said the police.
Though, he never attended a college, he even managed to work at a hospital in Madhuban at Karnal as a BAMS doctor. Meanwhile, he sold the family land at the village to become a shareholder of another hospital in Karnal and derived hefty returns from it before moving to Panchkula where in 2005 he came in contact with a property dealer and got 2 showrooms in Sector 20 on rent to open a hospital.
By this time, the people had started addressing him as doctor and this prompted him to flaunt the degree of doctor with his name openly. Later, he inserted an advertisement in the newspapers requiring doctors and he himself interviewed them, many of whom were postgraduate in their fields, said the sources.
Now, the police has written to the civil surgeon to constitute a board of doctors to evaluate the injury to the patients who lost the vision after Sandip conducted surgery on their eyes.
The con man held a free eye check up camp at Morni where 87 patients were operated. The “doctor’ was released a grant of Rs 600 for every patient from the government. Out of 25 patients operated upon by Sandip, sixteen lost the vision, said the sources.
Source: TNS
Globally banned diclofenac easily available in state
Shimla, March 9 Unchecked over-the-counter sale of globally banned veterinary drug diclofenac in Himachal Pradesh has put a question mark on the government’s effort in phasing out the drug that has been proven fatal for the endangered vulture.
After a steep fall in vulture count, which was related to use of diclofenac on livestock, as the bird ingests the drug while feeding on carcasses of such cattle, the bird was declared endangered and the drug was banned globally and in India during 2007.
While directing the Drug Controller of India to phase out diclofenac, the government had asked for its replacement with meloxicam in mid-August, 2006. Surprisingly, both the veterinary drugs are simultaneously available in Himachal, as found out by the Research and Welfare Organisation (RWO), a voluntary body, which has even filed a public interest litigation in the Himachal Pradesh High Court.
RWO chairman Sanjay Thakur has supported the PIL with his own experience of walking up to a drug store in Shimla to buy both the drugs, which were easily given to him without a prescription. The drug is also available at many other places in Himachal, says Sanjay.
“Diclofenac, with brand name dicloplus, which was sold to me, was manufactured in April 2007 and bears an expiry date of December 2010. If the old stocks are being supplied in the market illegally, which can be used at least till 2010, does this mean that all conservation and breeding efforts are futile?” questions Sanjay through his petition. The petition is expected to come up for hearing soon.
When contacted, Director, Animal Husbandry Department, B.C. Bisht said, “We have directed all field officers against prescribing the drug since it is banned. It was also struck off the government stock list. Its sale in the market has to be regulated by the drug controller, to whom the department had written long ago.”
Source: ENS