MUMBAI: Worli police on Wednesday arrested an orthopaedic surgeon who is attached to a few five-star hospitals in the western suburbs for allegedly practising medicine with fake degrees, endangering patients’ lives, threatening individuals, and misusing personal documents to fraudulently obtain official IDs and a passport.
Senior inspector of Worli police station Ravindra Katkar said Dr Atul Wankhede was arrested based on a complaint filed by a food delivery boy, Avinash Suresh Saminder (24), from Chembur against the doctor’s treatment for his back pain. He was produced before a local court, which remanded him to judicial custody.

Saminder suffered from a chronic spine condition since 2016-17. After learning about the doctor online, he reportedly consulted him at a suburban hospital on Nov 19, 2024, for severe back pain. According to the complaint, Wankhede dismissed his pain as minor and prescribed painkillers, in addition to some exercises.
Saminder’s condition reportedly worsened after following the doctor’s advice. He discussed it with his friend, Ashok Kabale, who advised against following Wankhede’s treatment. Kabale alleged that Wankhede had falsely used the residential address of one Prithviraj Ratanlal Bhatia in Juhu — long vacated by a mutual acquaintance — to obtain an Aadhaar card, voter ID, passport, and other documents under false pretences, according to the FIR.
After finding out about the fake documents, Saminder wrote to the Maharashtra Medical Council — a quasi-judicial organisation that has the power to suspend or revoke licences of allopathic doctors — to ascertain if Wankhede’s degree was authentic. As per the FIR, MMC officials told him that the doctor’s degree was under probe since 2015. Saminder then lodged a complaint with police.