Rs 17 crore snake‑bite fraud exposed in Chhattisgarh: doctors, lawyers, bankers and clerks among 17 arrested

It sounds like something out of a crime‑thriller, but this was real life in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. Over the past few weeks the district police, led by Superintendent Rajnesh Singh, cracked a sprawling scam that pretended dozens of suicides and heart‑attack deaths were snake‑bites, just so families could collect the ₹ 4 lakh compensation the state offers for each genuine bite.

The numbers are staggering. A BJP MLA, Sushant Shukla, raised the issue in the state assembly after noticing that 431 so‑called snake‑bite deaths had been recorded in Bilaspur over the last three years – a tally that translated into roughly ₹ 17.24 crore in payouts. That figure lit a fire under investigators, who soon uncovered a well‑orchestrated ring.

At the centre of the operation was Dr Priyanka Soni, a former physician attached to the Central Institute of Medical Sciences (CIMS). According to the police, she prepared fake post‑mortems that labelled hanging or cardiac arrests as snake bites. She isn’t alone. The net swept up a tehsil clerk, Harishankar Rathore, two staff members from the Sub‑Divisional Magistrate’s office – Narendra Kaushik and Garib Ram Binjhwar – a bank employee, Kush Kumar Gupta, and several lawyers, including Hiraprasad Khandekar, Mahendra Kumar and, allegedly, Shravan Vastrakar, who remains at large.

Even a daily‑wage driver, Govind Vishwakarma, was named as a “central operator” who allegedly coordinated some of the paperwork. In total, 16 FIRs have been lodged across multiple police stations, and 17 suspects have been taken into custody. One doctor, whose name the report withheld, is still on the run.

The scheme worked by exploiting a loophole in the state’s compensation rules. When a snake‑bite death is certified, the government automatically releases ₹ 4 lakh to the next of kin – a well‑intentioned safety net for victims of a very real menace in many rural parts of India. The conspirators, however, forged death certificates, reused old inquest numbers and slipped the fraudulent files through the system, pocketing the money for themselves.

Authorities say the fraud dates back to 2018, with the bulk of the fake claims filed between 2018 and 2024. The investigation is still ongoing, and officials warned that more arrests could follow as they trace the money trail further.

For the families who genuinely lost loved ones to actual snake bites, the scandal is a bitter reminder that corruption can turn even well‑meaning welfare schemes into a source of profit for the unscrupulous. The police promise tighter checks and faster verification to prevent a repeat.