Surat: City police’s special operations group (SOG), in coordination with the district health department, raided eight clinics in Pandesara and arrested eight men for allegedly practising medicine without medical qualifications. Medicines, injections and syrups worth Rs 98,825 were seized during the operation.Deputy commissioner of police (SOG) Rajdeep Nakum said police acted on intelligence about bogus doctors running clinics in the area.SOG teams led by police inspector Atul Sonara first verified the allegations by sending decoy patients to the suspected clinics. After confirming the inputs, police and health department officials conducted simultaneous raids at eight locations.Those arrested are Parth Kalibhar Debnath (40), Siddharth Debnath (38), Vinod Sahani (36), Manoranjan Biswal (54), Sajal Biswas (21), Vijay Yadav (55), Sandeep Sonawane (49) and Shyamnarayan Gupta (53).According to police, the accused ran clinics in various parts of Pandesara despite lacking the medical qualifications. Their educational backgrounds range from Class XII to BSc, while some previously worked as hospital compounders or operation theatre assistants. Cases were registered against all eight accused at Pandesara police station.Police said the raids came against the backdrop of a case involving one of the accused. Parth Debnath allegedly ran a facility called Swastik Clinic. About a month ago, a 14-year-old boy, Abhishek Balram Singh, was treated there and later died. His family alleged medical malpractice, after which an accidental death case was registered at Pandesara police station. The matter remains under investigation.
