Eleven arrested in one day, one clinic run for 26 years: Hyderabad Task Force raids on unqualified 'doctors' in August 2026, and the register check the commissioner asked for

In August 2026 the Hyderabad city police's Commissioner's Task Force raided clinics run by people with no recognised medical qualification. For a student weighing a medical career in India, or a family choosing where to be treated, the detail that matters is this: the register of doctors is public and searchable, yet unregistered clinics survived for years, in one case for more than two decades, in dense residential neighbourhoods of the state capital.

In raids reported on 25 August 2026, the Jubilee Hills Task Force team and local police arrested six people at five locations in Rahmath Nagar, Venkatagiri, Film Nagar and Borabanda, according to Telangana Today, seizing syringes, injections, saline bottles, surgical instruments and prescription books worth about Rs 53,000. Hyderabad Mail reported a parallel operation by the Secunderabad zone team, supervised by DCP Task Force Gaikwad Vaibhav Raghunath, which arrested six more. The South First put the day's total at eleven arrests (six in Secunderabad, five in Jubilee Hills, one fewer than Telangana Today's count) and eleven cases registered at different police stations, and quoted the DCP as saying the accused had practised "using fake degree certificates and fake doctor certificates".

The backgrounds reported by Hyderabad Mail and The South First follow a pattern. A 51-year-old with a BZC degree, who had worked as a hospital compounder for about six years, had allegedly run a clinic near Lower Tank Bund for 26 years. A 40-year-old homoeopathy graduate allegedly presented himself as an MBBS doctor and general and child specialist at a family clinic in Chilkalguda for about eight years; a purported MBBS certificate from an "Indian Medical Council" was seized there, police said. A 23-year-old who had studied only up to intermediate allegedly ran a skin clinic in Nallagutta for about four years and treated psoriasis with a home-made petroleum gel. Police told The South First that some of the accused saw 50 to 100 patients a day at Rs 50 to Rs 200 each, giving saline, glucose and injections. Seizures from the Secunderabad raids alone included 277 injections, 933 tablets, five rubber stamps and nine prescription pads.

The mechanism is simple. Men who had spent years as compounders learnt enough routine to open a room with a nameboard, and none of the reported cases was caught by a routine check of that board against the register. In a warning reported by Telangana Today on 27 August, Commissioner V C Sajjanar said police had identified twelve fake doctors and begun legal action. He said a genuine clinic displays its District Medical and Health Officer registration certificate at reception, and that a doctor's board must carry a Telangana State Medical Council registration number, which anyone can check through the council website's Doctor Search.

The lesson for students is the same as for patients. A "doctor" who offers to arrange an MBBS seat, a hospital job or hands-on training should be looked up on the state council register by name or registration number before any money changes hands. If the number cannot be found, walk away. And if you are a student living in Hyderabad and need treatment, check the TSMC search before you sit down in a consulting room.