19 Held in Chhattisgarh for Faking Snakebite Deaths, Pocketing Lakhs

Bilaspur: Nineteen persons, including a doctor, two home guards, and a lawyer, have been arrested in Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur district for allegedly orchestrating a scam by forging post-mortem reports to claim snakebite compensation and siphoning off lakhs, police said on Tuesday.

The syndicate fabricated medical and revenue documents, fraudulently securing Rs 64 lakh in government relief under the Revenue Book Circular 6-4 scheme for natural and other causes of death, Bilaspur Senior Superintendent of Police Rajnesh Singh said.

According to the investigation, each member of the racket played distinct roles to execute the fraud between November 2019 and February 2024.

Police have so far registered 16 FIRs at Sarkanda, Civil Lines, Koni, City Kotwali, Sirgitti and Torwa police stations in Bilaspur, and arrested 19 people over the past few days, while efforts are underway to apprehend the remaining members of the syndicate, Singh said.

Of the accused, Dr Priyanka Soni (37), an MBBS and MD, was nabbed in Nagpur, Maharashtra, on Sunday, while home guards Ramkumar Patanwar (40) and Rameshwar Bhaskar (53) were arrested on Monday, he said.

The trio were posted at the Chhattisgarh Institute of Medical Sciences (CIMS), Bilaspur, when the offences were allegedly committed, the official said.

According to the police, the home guards tipped off the racket whenever a body arrived at the hospital, while a lawyer persuaded grieving families to falsely claim snakebite deaths and arranged forged certificates.

Investigations have revealed that the accused used old inquest cases involving deaths due to illness, cancer, suicide and other causes, and prepared forged post-mortem reports in the names of CIMS doctors showing snakebite as the cause of death.

The gang allegedly fabricated seals and signatures of doctors, police personnel, patwaris, and other government officials to make the documents appear genuine, and based on these forged records, compensation claims were approved and the money credited to beneficiaries' bank accounts, after which it was shared among the accused, Singh said.

The probe has so far identified 16 fraudulent compensation claims involving a total payout of about Rs 64 lakh. In each case, the beneficiaries were allegedly paid around Rs 50,000, while the remaining amount was collected by the syndicate and distributed among its members, he said.

The other arrested accused include alleged kingpin and lawyer Heera Prasad Khandekar, bank employee Kush Kumar Gupta, daily-wage worker Govind Vishwakarma and government employees Gareeb Ram Bijwad, Narendra Kaushik and Harishankar Rathore, among others.

The officer said that Vishwakarma, a daily-wage employee associated with the tehsil office, allegedly played a key role in processing the files and securing approvals with the help of government employees posted there.

In some cases, the accused went as far as to tamper with bodies to create marks resembling snakebites before manipulating inquest and post-mortem records, he said.

The police have seized forged government seals, fabricated post-mortem reports, death certificates, inquest records, Aadhaar cards, bank passbooks, bank account forms, computers, printers, cash and other incriminating material during the investigation, officials said.

The investigation is underway to identify beneficiaries and other public servants who may have been involved in the alleged fraud, they added.