The namesakes: How 6 X-ray technicians named ‘Arpit Singh’ went undetected in UP hospitals for nine years

Nine years on, in August this year, the curious case of six more X-ray technicians with the same name, the same father’s name and the same recruitment year working in six district hospitals and health centres started doing the rounds.

Accused by the health department of using forged documents to secure these postings in Shamli, Banda, Amroha, Balrampur, Farrukhabad and Rampur, all six accused are on the run since the fraud allegedly came to light recently.

While the health department claims it became aware of these six fraudulent appointments following media reports, sources said the discrepancies were reportedly discovered during a scrutiny of the Manav Sampada portal, the state’s online platform for maintaining personnel and service records, nearly a week ago.

Following this discovery, the department allegedly sought reports from the districts where the seven ‘Arpit Singhs’ were posted. A scrutiny of their documents by senior officials revealed that six of them had reportedly secured their appointments using fraudulent means.

Even as a departmental inquiry is being conducted to “fix responsibility”, Dr Ranjana Khare, Director (Paramedical), Medical and Health Services, has filed a complaint at Lucknow’s Wazirganj police station.

Accusing the six men of causing financial loss to the state exchequer, her complaint states that while one of the accused had listed a Mainpuri address on his Aadhaar card, the five others had mentioned Agra addresses.

According to Rajesh Kumar Tripathi, Station House Officer, Wazirganj police station, teams will be sent to the districts concerned to collect evidence soon. He added, “There is no clarity at present on how the accused managed to get these postings. We are still investigating the complaint.”  

When The Indian Express reached out to Director-General (Medical Health) Dr Ratan Pal Singh Suman for a comment on the case, he declined stating that an inquiry was underway. However, he confirmed the identity of the “genuine” Aprit Singh.

The “genuine” Arpit Singh lives in Hathras with his wife and two children. Despite learning about the “fraud” recently, he said he had been going to work daily at the CHC in Mursan, Hathras.

“I heard about the case recently through the media. Though all six accused used my name and father’s name, their medical and educational certificates were different. While five of the six accused had listed Agra addresses on their Aadhaar cards, four of them had the same address as mine,” he told The Indian Express over telephone.

He expressed his surprise over how the six accused had managed to work for nearly nine years without raising suspicions about their identity.

Since the incident came to light, politicians have been taking potshots at Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav, who was the Chief Minister when these recruitments took place.

Alleging that appointments were made on the basis of kinship, money and region, leading to widespread corruption, during the regimes led by the SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party, Bharatiya Janata Party state spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said his party would probe all irregularities in government recruitments.

“It may have happened late, but an inquiry has been conducted. Action will be taken against those who secured these jobs by fraudulent means. Because of such practices, deserving youth were deprived of their rightful opportunities,” he said.

Meanwhile, at the Rampur district hospital and the Farrukhabad CHC — where two of the six accused men worked for nine years — their former colleagues expressed shock over these recent revelations.

In Rampur, one of the accused was posted at the district hospital’s tuberculosis department. “We never suspected anything because his documents appeared genuine. He has not been coming to work since September 1,” Dr Satya Prakash, the district tuberculosis officer, told The Indian Express over telephone.

Stating that the accused would produce an Aadhaar card with the name ‘Arpit Singh’ whenever required, a hospital employee said, “He lived alone in Rampur. His family never visited him once in all the time he was posted here. He never gave us any reason to doubt his identity.”

At the CHC in Shamshabad, Farrukhabad, employees said they were still struggling to come to terms with the fact that their colleague of nine years was not, in fact, ‘Arpit Singh’.

CHC incharge Dr Sarwar Iqbal said, “He stopped reporting for work since August 24 without prior intimation. Recently, he sent me a prescription allegedly issued by a government doctor over whatsApp. He claimed that he had not been coming to work since he was sick.