Gandhinagar: A gang that was churning out fake medical degrees even to class 8 graduates charging Rs 70,000 each was busted in Gujarat's Surat, NDTV reported.
It is now revealed that the gang maintained a database of 1,200 fake degrees and the police arrested 14 fake doctors who purchased degrees from the gang.
The police found out along with the arrest of the main accused, Dr Ramesh Gujarati, the accused were offering degrees, "issued by" the "Board of Electro Homoeopathic Medicine (BEHM) Gujarat".
The cops recovered hundreds of applications, certificates and stamps in their possession.
After receiving tip off that three people with fake medical degrees were running allopathy practice, police and the revenue department together raided their clinics.
During questioning, the accused produced degrees issued by BEHM which according to the police was fake as the state government did not issue it.
It is reported that the accused registered the "degrees" on a fake website.
The main accused took the advantage of India having no regulations over electro-homeopathy and went head setting up a board to offer degrees on his own, according to the report.
Police added that the accused hired five people and trained them in electro-homeopathy for less than three years, teaching them how to prescribe electro-homeopathy medicines.
The gang however changed their plans when they found out that people were apprehensive of electro homeopathy.
They started offering degrees issued by the Ayush Ministry of Gujarat, claiming that their fake board BEHM has a tie-up with the state government and charged ₹ 70,000 for a degree and offered training.
The gang convinced the applicants that the certificate would allow them practice allopathy, homoeopathy, and Aarogya without any problem, according to the police.
They issued certificate within 15 days of paying the money and made the point clear that the ‘doctors’ were required to renew certificates after one year paying Rs 5,000 to 15,000.
The gang threatened the ‘doctors’ who could not renew the certificate.
Police said that two of the accused identified as Shobhit and Irfan were behind embezzling money.