A school dropout who falsely claimed to be a doctor has been arrested by Hyderabad Police. The man, identified as Veeragandham Teja, has been practising as a doctor for nearly four years and has duped several patients in many cities.
Police seized his fake documents. According to police, everything from his name to age, educational qualification and work experience, was fake.
Teja is said to have worked in at least 16 private hospitals, conducted several medical camps and even volunteered with the local police for assisting migrant workers during the pandemic. But then he was just 23 years of age to have such an illustrious medical career.
The matter came to light when his second wife revealed everything about him. She filed a complaint against her husband on charges of domestic violence. She had alleged that Teja had concealed his earlier marriage and pressed charges of cheating. The police then found four other FIRs prevailing against him, ranging from collecting money and cheating people on the pretext of solving land disputes, promises of government and private jobs to criminal intimidation and even causing hurt.
But after his arrests, the cops were shocked when they got to know that everything about Teja was fake. Everything from his Class 10 Marksheet, to provisional certificates and migration certificates from universities were forged and fraudulently procured with the help of education consultancies, the police said.
It has been reported that Teja fled home in 2005 and worked in several cities such as Vijayawada, Tirupati, Howrah and Lucknow selling water bottles and snacks in trains. Teja then came across a doctor, YS Purushottam Reddy, who took him to his house in Tirupati and got him a job.
In 2012, Teja learnt how to drive, got a licence, a voter ID card, a PAN card and an Aadhaar card using the doctor’s home address and initials ‘YS’. Subsequently, Teja got his fake degrees.
“Based on these forged certificates, he joined JN Medical College, Raipur, as an intern, where he actually learnt about medicine. He then went to Bengaluru, where he worked as junior DMO in Sapthagiri Hospital for some time,” Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagawat said.
He had gone to Hyderabad where he worked in various super speciality hospitals until February 2020 with his fake MBBS certificates. The police have registered several cases against Teja under sections 419, 420, 465, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code and are investigating the case.
