Chhattisgarh: Doc, home guards among 19 held in snakebite compensation 'scam'

Nineteen people, including a doctor, two home guards and a lawyer, have been arrested in Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur district for allegedly running a racket that forged post-mortem reports to falsely claim government compensation for snakebite deaths, police said on Tuesday, 21 July.

According to police, the syndicate fabricated medical and revenue records to fraudulently secure around Rs 64 lakh under the Revenue Book Circular 6-4 scheme, which provides relief in cases of natural and other specified deaths.

Bilaspur senior superintendent of police Rajnesh Singh said the racket operated between November 2019 and February 2024, with each accused playing a specific role in executing the fraud.

Police have registered 16 FIRs across Sarkanda, Civil Lines, Koni, City Kotwali, Sirgitti and Torwa police stations. Nineteen people have been arrested over the past few days, while efforts are on to trace the remaining members of the syndicate.

Among those arrested are Dr Priyanka Soni (37), an MBBS and MD doctor, who was arrested in Nagpur on Sunday, and home guards Ramkumar Patanwar (40) and Rameshwar Bhaskar (53), who were arrested on Monday. All three were posted at the Chhattisgarh Institute of Medical Sciences (CIMS), Bilaspur, when the alleged offences took place.

Police alleged that the two home guards alerted the syndicate whenever a body arrived at the hospital, while lawyer Heera Prasad Khandekar, identified as the alleged kingpin, persuaded bereaved families to falsely claim deaths were caused by snakebite and arranged forged certificates.

Investigators said the accused reused old inquest cases involving deaths caused by illness, cancer, suicide and other reasons, and prepared fake post-mortem reports in the names of CIMS doctors showing snakebite as the cause of death.

The syndicate also allegedly forged seals and signatures of doctors, police personnel, patwaris and other government officials to make the documents appear authentic. Using these fabricated records, compensation claims were approved and the money was transferred to beneficiaries' bank accounts before being shared among the accused, Singh said.

The investigation has so far uncovered 16 fraudulent compensation claims amounting to about Rs 64 lakh. Police said beneficiaries were allegedly paid around Rs 50,000 in each case, while the remaining amount was collected and distributed among members of the racket.

Other arrested accused include bank employee Kush Kumar Gupta, daily-wage worker Govind Vishwakarma, and government employees Gareeb Ram Bijwad, Narendra Kaushik and Harishankar Rathore, among others.

According to police, Vishwakarma, who worked as a daily-wage employee with the tehsil office, played a key role in processing files and securing approvals with the help of government employees posted there. In some cases, the accused allegedly tampered with bodies to create marks resembling snakebites before manipulating inquest and post-mortem records, police said.

During the investigation, police seized forged government seals, fake post-mortem reports, death certificates, inquest records, Aadhaar cards, bank passbooks, bank account forms, computers, printers, cash and other incriminating material.

With PTI inputs