Mumbai:
A 36-year-old doctor has been arrested after he was allegedly found to have been treating patients in a hospital here for over seven years using fake certificates, police said on Thursday.
The accused, Mohammed Zuber Qureshi, who has been treating in the Bombay Hospital since February 2003, was arrested from his hospital quarters residence yesterday, Assistant Police Commissioner Anil Mahabole said.
Qureshi impersonated as his former batch mate, Meraj Shaikh (35), who passed out from Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College in Wardha and presently works in a Nagpur hospital, Mahabole said.
The imposter was booked under various sections of IPC including sections-- 336 (Act endangering life or personal safety of others), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 419 (cheating by impersonation), 465 (forgery), 466 (Forgery of record of court or of public register).
Qureshi, introducing himself as Shaikh, procured photocopies of MBBS certificates of his doctor friend saying he lost them and used them while joining as doctor in the Bombay Hospital, he said.
"He registered himself as Meraj Shaikh in the hospital, opened bank accounts and even procured a passport," he said, adding all his fake documents have been seized.
Qureshi's criminal activities came to fore when one of Shaikh's friends told him that a doctor with similar name was working in a hospital here. Initially, Shaikh did not take things seriously. But when Shaikh learnt that Qureshi's father name is also similar to that of the doctor operating in the Bombay hospital, suspicion grew in his mind, police said.
Moreover, the telephone directory of the hospital, too, had Shaikh's name listed in it, they said.
"Shaikh immediately lodged a complaint following which police arrested the fake doctor. It is strange that this happened in a prestigious hospital," Mahabole said.
Shaikh and Qureshi were in the same class in the college and the accused was debarred from the medical college in 1994 after he failed in the MBBS exams four times.