Kerala police on Wednesday arrested the controversial naturopath Mohanan Vaidyar for claiming that the pandemic COVID-19 can be cured. The arrest was made after officials, including Thrissur District Medical Officer (DMO), raided the Ayurvedic centre at Pattikkad in the district, where he had gone to allegedly extend help to “cure” coronavirus.
Twenty four people are currently under treatment for COVID-19 at the various medical colleges in Kerala and the government has issued stringent directions that those spreading fake news and false claims on COVID-19 will face strict action. However, at a time when the government is trying to prevent the further spread of the disease in the state, Mohanan Vaidyar addressed the public to make false claims.
In his Facebook post, which has was taken down after he was booked, Mohanan claimed he could “cure all kinds of viral diseases,” including COVID-19.
Talking to TNM, Peechi police in Thrissur confirmed that Mohanan Vaidyar has been arrested.
“We received information that he had claimed to cure COVID-19 and was available for treatment in this particular treatment centre in Pattikkad. We are yet to find out whether he was consulted by people who believed this claim. At present we have arrested him for pretending to be a medical practitioner,” an official of Peechi police station told TNM.
Mohanan has been arrested under Sections 419 (Punishment for cheating by personation), 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 269 (Negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 270 (Malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 17(4) of the Indian Medicine Central Council Act, which directs imprisonment for any non-qualified medical practitioner.
In the past too, Mohanan Vaidyar had come out with serious fake claims. During the Nipah outbreak in 2018, through a video posted on social media, he had stated that there was no problem in eating fruit bitten by bats. Nipah virus, which is spread by bats, has taken the lives of 17 people in the state. That is when the controversial naturopath put out videos of himself eating fruits which he claimed had also been bitten into by bats. The video was later taken down under the directions of the Kerala government.
Recently in September 2019, he was booked by the police following the death of a one-and-a-half-year-old child whom he treated. His treatment centre in Alappuzha was shut down following the incident. In October 2019, he was arrested for allegedly giving wrong treatment for a minor patient following a misdiagnosis.