Remember, crooks can smell your desperation

The ayurvedic store where mid-day reporters were taken is located in this building, outside Dadar railway station. Pic/Rajesh Gupta

A gang of thugs has been brazenly running a racket out of Mumbai's various cancer hospitals, preying on the emotionally vulnerable families of the patients, luring them with a miracle cure - a "special" ayurvedic concoction. The cancer will never recur, they promise their vulnerable prey, mostly the rich, fleecing them of lakhs in the process. A report in this paper, with reporters going undercover, unearthed the modus operandi.

The gang members sneak inside the hospitals, carrying random medical files and X-ray reports and keep an eye on patients arriving in high-end cars. They somehow retrieve the medical files of such patients and then approach their relatives, convincing them to switch over to ayurvedic treatments instead of wasting lakhs of rupees on allopathic medicines.

An elaborate trap is set after which the targets are brought to the leader. He charges them lakhs for a paste, ostensibly the cure for cancer.

Action may follow this report; it must, but we want to see a sustained campaign to stamp out this racket.

Also read: Gang of quacks runs amok in Mumbai cancer hospitals

Cancer brings caregivers, families to the edge as they are willing to try any measure to save their loved ones, many of them battling a terminal illness.

Awareness must be enhanced that there is no such miracle cure for cancer. Scamsters are quick to realise that people are immensely vulnerable fighting the ‘Emperor of All Maladies' and will be willing to contact anyone offering a cure.

Even in that state, put sound sense, logic, scepticism and fact-checking above all else. Rich or poor, cancer treatments are enervating not just emotionally but tough financially, too. You can put that money to good medical use rather than palm it off to a charlatan. Simple checks and in fact, just thinking about these claims will show there is no such antidote. Meanwhile, arrest the cons who manage to infiltrate medical facilities.