Mumbai: Doctor, 3 ambulance staff booked in death certificate scam – Times of India

MUMBAI: A doctor and three ambulance staffers were booked by the crime branch in a racket where death certificates were being issued without examining the patient. The case has been handed over to the Nagpada police who will investigate how many death certificates were issued in this manner.
Crime branch sleuths received a tip-off that an ambulance staffer, Sunny Kavale, was facilitating the racket. An individual posing as a patient’s relative called up Kavale, on the police’s instructions, and said he was seeking a death certificate for the patient. Kavale asked for identity documents like an Aadhar card of the patient over WhatsApp. He got a certificate issued from a Chinchpokli based doctor, Sagar Inamdar. The certificate was issued without examining if the patient was dead or alive.
The crime branch team led by inspector Jagdish Bhambal and assistant inspector Rajesh Patil discovered that Kavale would seek out relatives of patients near JJ Hospital. “Kavale lived in the JJ Hospital compound as his parents worked at the hospital. He would come across several relatives of patients who needed a death certificate to ferry the patient’s body back to their hometown or for other formalities post death. He would then connect these relatives to the doctor,” said an officer.
A case was registered against Inamdar, Kavale and his two accomplices, Somnath Gaikwad and Dashrath Gurav, for cheating on May 13. Gaikwad and Gurav worked on ambulances with Kavale. The Nagpada police have issued notices to all the accused under the Code of Criminal Procedure.