On the day his remand with Vastrapur police was supposed to end, Dr Prashant Vazirani, the only accused to have been arrested following the death of two PMJAY beneficiaries at Khyati Multispeciality Hospital, was sent to four-day remand of the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) of Ahmedabad Police on Thursday.
Dr Vazirani, the visiting cardiologist at Khyati Multispeciality Hospital, is accused of performing unnecessary angioplasty surgeries on seven PMJAY beneficiaries from Borisana village of Kadi in Mehsana without cause, and without informed consent from them or their kin, with the purpose of making an illegal gain and cheating the state government as well as the families of the patients.
Dr Vazirani, who owns his own clinic in Ahmedabad, was arrested on November 13, just hours after three FIRs were filed in this case against him and four owners of Ahmedabad Bariatrics and Cosmetics Pvt Ltd, the holding company of Khyati Hospital.
He was arrested by Vastrapur police and, on November 14, presented in court, which sent him to seven days of police custody.
However, on November 18, the entire case was transferred from Vastrapur police to the Crime Branch with the latter seeking more time to interrogate Dr Vazirani. A statement by the Crime Branch on Thursday said the court had granted it four days’ remand of Dr Vazirani.
Meanwhile, DCP (Crime) Ajit Rajian said that bottles of liquor had been seized from the homes of Chairman Kartik Jasu Patel and Director Chirag Rajput in violation of the state’s Prohibition Act. Separate cases are likely to be filed against them in this regard even as all the four absconding accused, including Rajshree Pradeep Kothari and Dr Sanjay Mulji Patolia, remained out of the reach of the police for the eighth day after filing of the FIRs.
Further, a statement from the Crime Branch said that a team of cardiologists appointed by the state government will soon give its report on whether the angiography and angioplasty surgeries carried out on patients under PMJAY were required or not. It further stated that investigation was also being carried out into medical records of patients from 13 other villages where angiographies were conducted by Khyati Hospital.
Apart from issuing Look Out Circulars (LOCs) against the four absconding accused, the Crime Branch on Thursday announced that it had sent out teams to apprehend CEO Rahul Jain and Marketing Manager Milind Patel in this case. The Crime Branch had named them as suspects in an earlier statement on Wednesday.
CCTV footage of the hospital is also being checked to ascertain if other people were also involved in the racket.
Meanwhile, the Crime Branch has frozen the bank accounts of all five current accused in the case and is collecting information regarding their movable and immovable properties.
The five accused were booked in three FIRs, one by the state government and two by the families of the deceased, for culpable homicide, attempted culpable homicide, forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy, for allegedly performing unnecessary angioplasty surgeries on two patients — Mahesh Girdhar Barot (52) and Nagar Moti Senma (75) — who later lost their lives due to alleged negligence in post- operative care.
