Silchar: Why are genuine doctors still practicing in hospitals that employed a fake gynecologist, Pulak Malakar?
Malakar, who brazenly operated as a consultant in multiple hospitals with forged and dubious credentials, now sits in police custody. Yet, Cachar Police has not detained or arrested a single member of hospital management or any senior doctor connected to the case. Since Malakar’s arrest, several FIRs have been lodged across Silchar. Patients and their attendants have come forward with stories of negligence that should shake any medical professional to the core. In one case, instead of removing the left ovary, he removed the right. In another case, a stillborn child was delivered after Malakar allegedly performed surgery without the patient’s consent.
The FIRs and Malakar’s own statements have dragged the names of several private nursing homes into the light. While Malakar has stained the white coat, the greater shock lies in the silence of the city’s senior medical community. Patients have named doctors like Dr Pinak Pani Dutta and Dr T. S. Appy, with evidence suggesting that Malakar assisted both of them in various capacities. How deep runs this network of unqualified hands meddling with the lives of unsuspecting citizens?
One private hospital even issued prescription pads to Malakar. Printed on the letterhead was “MBBS, CDM Pune”. Pune is a city, not a medical institution. CDM stands for Clinical Data Management, yet the same letterhead claimed expertise in diabetes and obstetrics and gynaecology. The hospital is complicit in lending credibility to falsehood.
The readiness to work alongside a man like Malakar speaks of a troubling insecurity among some senior doctors. Instead of grooming the talented graduates emerging from Silchar Medical College, they cling to the comfort of a compliant assistant. They know that once young doctors gain competence, they will open their own clinics, conduct their own surgeries and no longer serve under another’s shadow. This is why they choose silence. Those not directly involved may claim innocence, but silence in the face of such malpractice is guilt of another kind.
Siva Sundari Nari Sikshasram Hospital, whose management includes former Silchar MP Dr Rajdeep Roy, has publicly claimed that Malakar was never associated with them. Yet a published list of the hospital’s consulting doctors includes his name. Neither the hospital nor Dr Roy has explained the contradiction.
The police investigation continues under the watch of the Chief Minister’s Office. During searches of Malakar’s residence, officers reportedly recovered a diary containing the phone numbers of senior members of nursing home managements as well as numerous medical representatives. This points to a web of contacts that must be scrutinised without fear or favour.
Despite the gravity of these revelations, the civil society of Barak Valley has remained largely indifferent. This is not just another case of professional misconduct. This is a man with no formal medical training conducting C-sections. A senior lawyer has rightly argued that Malakar should be booked under provisions relating to molestation and sexual assault, because he touched and operated on patients without legal or medical sanction. That is not only malpractice, it is a criminal offence.
Hospitals have been named. It is now the turn of the doctors to shoulder their share of responsibility. What happens inside an operating theatre is ultimately the doctor’s domain. The hospital owner or manager does not hold the scalpel. This Independence Day, the doctors of Barak Valley must pledge to cleanse their profession of the impostors working in its midst.
India already faces a doctor-to-population ratio of roughly one doctor for every 1,263 people, about 0.79 per 1,000. When senior practitioners protect impostors rather than mentor young doctors, they rob both the profession and the public of the talent needed to strengthen our health system. It is a betrayal that will drive young doctors away from the discipline of medicine and push the nation towards a darker, more dangerous future.
By Anirban
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