Delhi Police have arrested a man who had been living as a fake doctor in Haridwar for more than 10 years while being wanted in two cases of cheating and forgery in Delhi.
The accused, Raj Kumar Sharma, 52, was caught by the Anti Robbery and Snatching Cell (ARSC) of the Crime Branch in a late-night operation on June 11–12, police said on Friday.
Sharma had been absconding since 2007 and was declared a proclaimed offender by the courts in both cases. In Haridwar, he had changed his identity and was living as a doctor, claiming to be associated with AIIMS Rishikesh. Locals knew him as “Doctor Sahab” and had no idea about his criminal background.
The police team that arrested him was led by Inspectors Mangesh Tyagi and Robin Tyagi and supervised by ACP Arvind Kumar.
The team tracked him using technical surveillance and human intelligence. After confirming his location, they arrested him from his house in Haridwar and brought him to Delhi.
According to police, Sharma was first booked in 2007 in a case registered at PS Roop Nagar (now under NR-I, Crime Branch) for cheating government banks.
He and five others took vehicle loans using fake documents. A car was also recovered from him, which he had fraudulently financed. During the trial, he stopped appearing in court and was declared a proclaimed offender in 2016.
In the second case, registered in 2015 at PS Burari, Sharma sold a plot to two persons using fake property papers and collected Rs. 14.10 lakh from them. He later gave them a cheque for Rs. 26 lakh to settle the matter, but the cheque was from a closed bank account. When the victims approached the police, Sharma fled overnight and disappeared.
After his arrest, Sharma told police that he had been changing his appearance, phone numbers, and addresses regularly to avoid being caught. He had been living under a false name and identity in Haridwar for the last several years.
Sharma was born in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, in 1973. He studied up to B.A. from Meghalaya University. He has a son studying B. Pharma and a daughter pursuing LLB from Haridwar University.
Earlier, he used to publish magazines and newspapers in Burari, Delhi. He currently has no steady income and lives off his family’s agricultural land.
The Delhi Police have informed the concerned police stations to take further action.