Nine years on the run after a botched surgery that killed a patient, and a "cardiologist" who performed fifty operations on a stolen identity: Delhi's two fake-surgeon cases

Delhi's police have handled two fake-surgeon cases that between them cover the two main ways an impostor operates: with no identity, and with somebody else's.

According to Deccan Herald, in 2025 Delhi Police arrested a man who had been on the run for nine years after a surgery he performed, without any qualification to do so, led to the death of the patient. He had evaded arrest since 2016. The Tribune reported a separate case in which a man practising as a cardiologist had performed about fifty surgeries using a stolen identity, the name and credentials of a real, registered doctor, before the deception was discovered.

The first man had no credentials and relied on nobody checking. The second had excellent credentials, somebody else's, and relied on nobody checking that the man matched the file. Both practised in a capital city with large hospitals, a state medical council and a functioning police force, and both operated for long enough to injure people, because the point at which a hospital confirms a surgeon's identity and registration with the council was never reached.

The stolen-identity case belongs with the Kampala and Tokyo cases on this site. A register is a list of names, and anyone who can obtain a real doctor's degree certificate and registration number can, for a while, be that doctor. Hospitals that verify with the council, and councils that verify with the university, close that gap; employers that read the certificate do not.

For students, the practical lessons are the ones repeated across this site. Guard your own documents and registration number, because they are the raw material of the second fraud. And when choosing a hospital for training or a college for study, prefer the institution that asks for verification and takes time over it. The one that hires in a day hired these two.