Punjab govt hospital receives fake PMO emails, CBI initiates probe

The CBI has initiated a probe into more than two dozen fake emails received by a government hospital at Ludhiana in Punjab wherein the sender claimed to be from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

The emails asked the senior hospital officials to urgently look into a complaint against a doctor working there.

Following the first email, sent from an ID ‘pmoffice96@gmail.com’, the civil hospital’s senior medical officer (SMO) further received around two dozen reminders, asking about action taken in this regard.

The hospital officials forwarded all these emails to PM Narendra Modi’s private secretary Sanjeev Singla. The PMO told the CBI that no such email ID was in use by its officials and it was a clear case of impersonation of name and office of the PM.

Following a reference from the PMO, the CBI has registered an FIR on the charges of digital impersonation against unknown persons.

In one of the emails, the impersonator used PM Narendra Modi’s photo as well.

The first email from the ‘pmoffice96@gmail.com’ was received by the hospital’s civil surgeon and senior SMO on July 2 this year. The sender, claiming to be from the PMO, asked the hospital officials to look into a complaint by one Milan Sood, who had been treated in the hospital a day earlier. The complaint said though Sood had injuries from a sharp weapon but the doctor preparing his medical report termed them as injuries from blunt weapon.