Fake pacemakers, 80 patients and 17 deaths, lives sold for 10% profit; story of a medical college in UP

The police have achieved a major success in the much talked about pacemaker scandal of Etawah in Uttar Pradesh. The police have arrested the main supplier of fake pacemakers at the hospital. This supplier has been identified as Indrajit Kumar son of Badhuram. This supplier, a resident of Azamgarh, was arrested near Gate No. 3 of PGI Saifai. This fraudster had supplied 80 fake pacemakers in connivance with the then-doctor of the Cardiology Department at Saifai Medical University, Sameer Sarraf.

The doctor also implanted these pacemakers in the patients. After this, 17 patients died. This created a stir, so later the doctor was arrested and an attempt was made to save the remaining patients. Accused Indrajit has told the police during interrogation that he works for Krishna Health Care Company of Kanpur. This company supplies pacemakers for Biotonic Company. He told that in the year 2018, he had tied up with Dr. Sameer Sarraf of PGI Saifai and hatched a conspiracy to make non-MRI pacemakers available to patients by labeling them as MRI pacemakers.

Actually, at that time the price of an MRI pacemaker from Biotronic company was Rs 2 lakh, while non-MRI pacemaker was available for Rs 80 thousand. In such a situation, he started charging the price of an MRI pacemaker by implanting a non-MRI pacemaker in the patients. According to the accused, he used to get 10 percent of the amount charged and the rest of the amount was taken by Dr. Sameer. The accused said that he had provided a total of 80 pacemakers to Dr. Sameer.

After the disclosure of the case, the police arrested the main accused of the crime, Dr. Sameer, on 7 November 2023. In this regard, CMS Dr. Adesh Kumar had filed a case against Dr. Sameer Sarraf on charges of unnecessary arbitrary purchases, pacemaker fraud, unnecessary foreign trips, embezzlement, etc. In this sequence, on Sunday, supplier Indrajit son of Badhuram, originally a resident of Tandwa in Azamgarh, was arrested. This fraudster was living in Maswanpur, Kanpur these days.

According to Etawah SSP Sanjay Kumar Verma, the accused has made several big revelations during police interrogation. The accused said that he supplies both types of pacemakers on behalf of his company. Once he was talking to Dr. Sameer, they planned to commit such fraud. After this, both of them together executed this fraud. This case was investigated by the then CO of Saifai, Nagendra Choubey. He said that this is a very big racket and many other people are yet to be arrested in this racket.