Pune: Man poses as doctor for 10 years, finally arrested for cheating patients

The Bund Garden Police have identified the accused as Kamble, a 34-year-old school dropout, who belonged to Navi Peth. From 2010, the man would allegedly pose as a doctor and take money from the relatives of the patient on the pretext of buying expensive medicines. The areas of the operation for this fake doctor had been Sassoon General Hospital and other private hospitals in the city.

As per the latest media report by the Indian Express, Police authorities got to know about this scam after a team from Bundgarden Police Station started a probe for two cheating cases in recent times. In those cases, the patients of Pune-based Sassoon General Hospital had been approached by a caller who claimed to be a doctor. He asked for money from the patients with the excuse of buying injections that were locally unavailable. The accused identified himself as Dr Deshpande and duped the families of two patients of Rs 7,000 and Rs 20,000. The case had been registered with Bundgarden Police in January.

Following this, police started investigating the matter and after tracing the phone calls made to the victims narrowed it down to the accused Kamble, adds the daily. The report further adds that the management of Sassoon General Hospital is also aware of this arrest as the suspect demonstrated elaborately about his cheating procedures in front of the hospital's senior doctors.

A recent media report by the Times of India adds that the police team led by senior inspector Yashwant Gawari and comprising sub-inspector Ramkrishna Dalvi acted on a tip-off and made the arrest on Tuesday.

While commenting on the matter, Inspector Gawari, the in-charge of Bundgarden Police Station, informed Indian Express, "The probe has revealed that the suspect has been cheating patients and kin in this manner since 2010. We now know of at least 21 cases in which he had cheated people asking for money, telling them some injections were needed for emergency and he could help procure them at a lower cost. He has also been arrested once in the past and had stopped doing this 2017 but again started doing it recently."

Sub-inspector Ramkrushna Dalvi has further added, "He has been identifying himself either as Dr. Deshpande or Dr. Kulkarni. He has cheated patients from various hospitals including government-run and private in the past. We want to appeal to citizens to approach us if they have been cheated in the same manner. We are now probing further into his modus operandi and how he got access to phone numbers of patients or kin, by using various tricks."

Deputy commissioner of police (Zone II) Sagar Patil has informed TOI, "The police team analyzed the technical data in the case and arrested Kamble."

Explaining the process of how the Police made the arrest, a senior officer informed TOI, "The police analyzed the data of the UPI application on which the duped kin of the patients transferred money. Also, the cellphone used by Kamble was put under observation."

Meanwhile, the alleged accused has revealed to the police that he started cheating police after his parents' death as a method of earning money. Recently, he started the scam again as he had been suffering from a serious ailment for some time and needed money for treatment. The police are verifying the claim made by the accused.