Mumbai: Police have arrested the trustee of the Jeevan Jyot Trust, which ran the BMC’s MT Agarwal Hospital in Mulund (West), along with another member, taking the number of people in custody to five.
An FIR against the trust and six people attached to the hospital was registered in May.
In the FIR, accessed by the FPJ, six people were listed along with the trust: Dr Bijendra Yadav, Jyoti Thakkar, JC Vakil, Ratanlal Jain, Deepak Jain and Deepti Mehta. On Wednesday, the Mulund police arrested Dr Yadav and Deepak Jain, Senior Inspector Kantilal Kothimbire said.
Anticipatory bail of 2 rejected on Aug 11
According to sources, the two had applied for anticipatory bail, which was rejected on August 11.
In mid-May a complainant, Goldy Sharma, approached the police alleging that an RTI reply had revealed that 149 deaths were recorded in the hospital’s ICU in a span of nine months – from February 17 to November 22, 2018. The cause of these deaths was listed as heart attack.
Goldy told FPJ that he started tracking the hospital’s activities after his brother, Rajkumar Sharma, died in the same ICU on June 4, 2019. He said that the RTI revealed that Jeevan Jyot was granted Rs8 crore by the BMC. However, the trust had appointed doctors without a valid eligible degree to the ICU.
Goldy added that Dr Yadav was also the owner of Dhanwantri Medical group, which operates at least 30 medical stores and labs in Mumbai-based hospitals.
BMC blacklisted Jeevan Jyot Trust
Following an uproar, the BMC blacklisted Jeevan Jyot Trust and took over the running of the hospital. However, a couple of days ago, Additional Municipal Commissioner Sudhakar Shinde visited the hospital and closed down the ICU permanently.
Goldy added that since registering the FIR, he had started receiving death threats.
“My mother got a threat call where the caller identified himself as a brother of a doctor from Solapur. He told me to take the case back or I will be killed, along with my family members. I have submitted the four-minute call recording to the police,” said Goldy.
Previously, three people were arrested for posing as doctors and working at the ICU. They signed death certificates and treated patients without having qualifications. The three were identified as Sushant Jadhav, Chandrashekhar Yadav, and Surekha Chavan. Jadhav and Yadav worked as doctors. Chavan worked as a coordinator.
The four other people listed in the FIR as accused are yet to be arrested.
