Bhubaneswar: As many as five middlemen were arrested by the Khandagiri police from the premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Bhubaneswar campus, Commissionerate Police said on Saturday.
Acting on reliable inputs on the menace of middlemen, a team of Khandagiri Police with the assistance of AIIMS Hospital outpost staff and hospital security personnel, conducted a raid at the OPD counter of AIIMS Bhubaneswar and apprehended five persons.
The accused persons were allegedly extorting money from patients and their attendants on the promise of providing them tokens or registration tickets required to avail of medical services in different departments of AIIMS Hospital.
Thousands of patients from Odisha and neighbouring States wait for hours in long queues to get registration tickets at the AIIMS Bhubaneswar. The middlemen or brokers used to target such persons and identify themselves as the staff of AIIMS. They were collecting a handsome amount from the people assuring them to get OPD tickets early for their treatment without coming in the queue, the police said.
The arrested persons, identified as Pradipta Kumar Gouda (22), Prakash Nayak (22), Sidheswar Behera alias Govinda(21), Manish Pattnaik (20), and Bikram Keshari Mallick(29), have been forwarded to the court, the Commissionerate Police.
