A five-year-old news is being shared as recent incident of fake doctor racket busted in West Bengal - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
July 29, 2022
A video of ‘NDTV’ news clip is being shared on social media claiming that 560 doctors who carried out medical practice based on fake medical degrees were arrested recently from the top hospitals in Kolkata. This post claims that one of these 560 fake doctors had recently received an award from the President of India. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: News clip reporting a recent fake doctor racket busted in Kolkata, West Bengal.
Fact: The video shared in the post shows an old news clip published by the ‘NDTV’ in June 2017. In June 2017, West Bengal CID identified over 500 doctors practising medicine in government and private hospitals using fake degrees. As part of this fake doctors racket, CID arrested Subhendu Bhattacharya, who received an award from then President Pranab Mukherjee at the inauguration of the 6th Dr. Malati Allen Nobel Award on 19 May 2017. This is not a recent incident. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
When we searched for this video using relevant keywords on the internet, we found the same video published on the official YouTube channel of the ‘NDTV’.  ‘NDTV’ published this video on 09 June 2017, with the title, “6 Fake Doctors Arrested In Bengal In A Month, 3 From Top Kolkata Hospitals”. The description of the video states, “ Six fake doctors have been arrested in West Bengal in the last one month. A seventh person was arrested for selling fake MBBS certificates. According to latest reports, large quantities of fake medicines too have been seized in Hooghly district”.
When we searched for further details of this fake doctors rocket busted in West Bengal, we found the details in an article published by ‘The Hindu’ on 07 June 2017. According to the article, over 500 fake doctors who practice medicine using fake medicine degrees were identified by the CID in West Bengal. CID reportedly arrested six fake doctors including two doctors working in renowned private hospitals for practising medicine using fake degrees in West Bengal.
As part of this fake doctors racket, on 02 June 2017, Howrah Police arrested Subhendu Bhattacharya, a well-known doctor in Ramrajatalla Kedarnath Bhattacharya Lane in Howrah, West Bengal. Subhendu Bhattacharya received an award from the then President Pranab Mukherjee at the inauguration of the 6th Dr. Malati Allen Nobel Award on 19 May 2017. Subhendu Bhattacharya was arrested on the charges of using a duplicate registration number and carrying out his practice based on fake medical degrees. However, this is not a recent incident.
To sum it up, a five-year-old news video is being shared as a recent incident of a fake doctor racket busted in West Bengal.