Rajasthan SOG arrests 6 including doctor, ASI for insurance fraud

Jaipur: Rajasthan special operations group (SOG) on Friday busted an interstate gang of fraudsters involved in declaring living people as ‘dead’ to claim insurance money. Gang members would claim the person to have died in an accident, carry out fake postmortem examinations and prepare bogus death certificates to back up their fraudulent insurance claims.

Those arrested include Dr Satish Kumar Khandelwal, a senior doctor at the government hospital in Dausa and Ramesh Chandra, an ASI deputed at Kotwali polices station in Dausa. Other accused were identified as Raghuraj Singh Chouhan, Rajesh Kumar, Chaturbhuj Meena and Yash Chouhan. Chaturbhuj Meena worked as a lawyer in Dausa.

The matter came to light when a case was registered against one Jitendra Singh, an auto driver in Delhi, for claiming insurance money by declaring himself dead. The FIR was registered with Kotwali police station in Dausa on October 10 last year.

As the involvement of an interstate organized gang was suspected, the case was investigated by SOG.

Umesh Mishra, ADG, SOG said that it came up during preliminary investigation that Jitendra Singh who had been declared dead was alive and worked as an auto driver in Delhi. He was living with his wife in Delhi.

“We came to know about a company named FRM Investigation Agency. One Raghuraj Singh Chouhan from this agency connived with a Union Bank of India employee Rajesh Kumar, Dausa-based advocate Chaturbhuj Meena, a senior doctor of Dausa government hospital Satish Kumar Khandelwal, an ASI deputed in Kotwali police station of Dausa Ramesh Chand and a Delhi-based aide Yash Chouhan to prepare insurance policies and claim insurance money by fraudulently declaring Jitendra Singh dead,” said Umesh Mishra.

He added that insurance policies were taken out from different companies including Birla Sun Life, Bajal Alliance, Aegon Religare and ING Vysya Bank in the name of Jitendra Singh.

“Raghuraj Singh and Yash Chouhan asked ASI Ramesh Chand and doctor Satish Kumar Khandelwal to prove the death of Jitendra Singh in a bogus accident case. A fake entry of Jitendra’s Singh death was entered into the police station records by Ramesh Chand, while Dr Satish Kumar Khandelwal issued a fake postmortem certificate so that a bogus death certificate could be prepared,” said Mishra.

Using the bogus death certificate, an insurance claim of Rs 12 lakh was successful made at Bajaj Alliance. They also got Rs 2 lakh each from Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima and Prime Minister Jeevan Suraksha Yojana. They made Jitendra Singh’s wife to claim the money. They then divided the money among the gang members.

But investigators at Birla Sun Life got suspicious. When they checked the documents, they were found to be completely bogus. The company then registered an FIR with Kotwali police station in Dausa.

Another similar case was registered with Ramgarh Pachwara police station. The gang members were attempting to get insurance money by declaring a cancer patient to have died in a road accident. The patient is still alive.

Police officials said that Raghuram Chouhan (36) and Rajesh Kumar (48) are residents of Gurugram in Haryana, while Rajesh Kumar. Dr Satish Kumar Khandelwal (54) belongs to Adarsh Colony in Dausa, while Chaturbhuj Meena is a resident of Chhareda village in Dausa.

ASI Ramesh Chandra (49) is a native of Hinduan City in Karauli district.

Yashvant Singh alias Yash Chouhan is a resident of Okhla area in Delhi.

“We suspect their involvement in more such cases across the country. Further investigation is going on to identify other members of the gang. We will seek police remand o the arrested men for further interrogation,” said Mishra.