Ahmedabad: A man who allegedly passed off his nephew’s death from cancer as a road accident death has been arrested after being on the run for 21 years.Acting on a tip-off, Gandhinagar district local crime branch arrested the accused, Mukesh Patel, from Kalol. In 2005, after a CID Crime officer learned of the alleged fraud, Patel was booked for criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery.According to the investigators, Patel, his brother, a police sub-inspector then posted in Sabarkantha, a doctor and others allegedly conspired to fabricate documents and show the cancer patient as having died in a road accident.The patient had received treatment for blood cancer at MP Shah Hospital between 1995 and 1999. He died at his home in Pratappura village on May 18, 1999. Three days later, Patel allegedly approached a police sub-inspector at Vijaynagar police station and had a false accident complaint registered.Police alleged that the case was processed as an accident case even though no body was presented for examination. A doctor allegedly prepared autopsy papers without examining the body, while the village panchayat allegedly issued a false death certificate.The documents were then submitted as genuine to an insurance company to claim a life insurance policy held by the deceased, yielding Rs 5 lakh.The accused used the same papers to file a claim before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal in Gandhinagar, seeking Rs 15 lakh in compensation. He then allegedly secured Rs 57,000 through the proceedings.The deceased’s wife, the police officer who allegedly registered the false complaint, the deceased’s cousin, the doctor who allegedly prepared the autopsy papers and a village panchayat official had already been arrested in the case.
