Fake doctor scam in Cachar's Katigorah; Four detained for looting villagers

In the name of healthcare awareness, a team of four, led by Sourav Dutta has scammed an entire village in Katigorah and looted thousands from the “not so fortunate” families of this village. In the incident that happened in the Gonirgaram village of Katigorah, a fake doctor has promised the “less educated” villagers of treatment and provided them with illicit medicines. Sourav Dutta has claimed himself as a doctor and along with his three team members, scammed the villagers for one entire month. On Thursday evening, their authenticity was questioned, which raised the eyebrows of the villagers. When the situation escalated, the Circle Officer, Katigorah was called for help and the Sub-Inspector of Police later took the scammers into their custody.

Sourav Dutta along with Pritam Roy, Gautam Suklabaidya and Abhijit Das has visited Gonigram village under Katigorah and conducted a door-to-door survey asking people about their health issues. These people have claimed themselves to be from a health company, “Smart Value Production Services Limited” and conducted basic health checkups like BP Monitoring, Blood Sugar level and others with over-the-counter health instruments. Aftab Hussain Mazumder, a Home Guard from that village speaking about the incident said, “They have organised a campaign and did some basic health checkups for which they charged hundred rupees from each patient they targeted. The next day they came again with medicines and gave almost the same medicine to all the patients with different diseases. My wife too is a victim of this scam and they charged her three hundred rupees for the checkup and nearly 1700 rupees per person for the medicines. Three people from my family itself fell for this trap and this went on with the entire village.” Speaking about the effectiveness of the medicines Mazumder said, “These medicines are nothing but fake ayurvedic juices and have no health benefits at all. It didn’t help in curing any diseases as they claimed”.

Sourav Dutta, the scamster who successfully looted people when asked about his identity, failed to produce any authentic documents related to the company or even himself. He has denied claiming himself as a doctor and said, “I didn’t claim to be a doctor, I just work for this company and sell medicines. As I’ve been working in this field for the last ten years, I have just named myself a consultant and took readings of the patients. The company has a website as well and has trained us for the checkups. All the medicines come from the company.” None of his team members could produce any identity cards but claims to have been working for the company for a very long time.

Badaruddin Mazarbhuiya, another villager said, “When we asked who is the doctor here, he (Sourav Dutta) said he was the doctor and is a urology and neurology specialist. When I asked why there was no receipt for the hundred rupees they were charging or even for the medicines, they said this money is for the maintenance of the machines.” Another villager, Sahiburali Mazarbhuiya said, “When we questioned them about their company and where it was based they seemed confused. We also have asked them, who sent them here and about their authenticity, that’s when they tried to wind up and run away.”

But the villagers didn’t let them escape and stopped them in the local LP School of that village. Later, the Circle Officer of Katigorah was called and rushed to the spot along with the Sub-Inspector of Katigorah Police Station. After rounds of questioning, when the SI was not convinced of their authenticity, the team of Assam Police took them to the Police Station for further investigation of the matter. Sourav Dutta has said that he has returned all the money his team has collected from the villagers according to their demands.