Days after the Delhi Police arrested 12 people for supplying spurious cancer medicines to patients from across the country, relatives of at least three victims said they were duped into buying the drugs as they were cheaper than those being sold in the market.
The police said the accused would win the patients’ confidence by first supplying genuine life-saving drugs stolen from cancer hospitals, and would later sell them fake versions of the drugs.
The police added that as the accused themselves worked at cancer hospitals, it became easier for them to approach relatives of patients to whom they offered otherwise costly medicines at cheaper rates.
“A probe is being carried out to ascertain how members of the gang stole drugs from the departments in which they worked,” said a senior officer.
One of the gang’s victims was a 40-year-old man from Bihar’s Madhubani who said he had approached one Luv Narula, in April 2022, when his wife was receiving treatment at the Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Hospital in Delhi.
He claimed that the spurious injection given to them by Mr. Narula led to the death of his wife, who was battling with Stage 4 oral cancer.
“I had got his contact details from some people who told me he provides cheaper cancer medicines,” the Bihar resident said on condition of anonymity.
Dangerous dupes
He was sent an injection via a flight to Patna, and the payment was made in cash. However, his wife’s condition deteriorated as soon as she was administered the injection at a Patna hospital.
“At first, doctors weren’t able to understand what had caused her health to fail. Later, I checked the vial and found that the batch number mentioned on it was wrong,” he said.
Another victim, a 37-year-old homemaker from Noida whose 63-year-old father, a resident of Assam, was diagnosed with fourth-stage prostate cancer, purchased cancer medicines from Neeraj Chauhan, the alleged kingpin of the racket.
“I met Neeraj at a Gurugram hospital, where my father was being treated in 2022,” she said, adding that she got abiraterone tablets from him for just ₹6,500, which usually cost ₹28,000 per bottle in the market.
‘Nothing suspicious’
“We never noticed anything suspicious. We stopped purchasing medicines from him as my father lives in Assam and sending the medicines to him from Delhi was a costly affair. I don’t know how many people ended up buying medicines from him,” she said.
The Delhi police had arrested 12 people in connection with the case.
They all worked at cancer hospitals in Gurugram and Delhi.
