'Black magic, fund embezzlement': What's happening at Mumbai's Lilavati hospital
What's the story
Mumbai's famous Lilavati Hospital is being embroiled in a huge scandal of alleged fund embezzlement and black magic.
The Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust has lodged an FIR against 17 people, including seven former trustees and suppliers of equipment.
The complaint alleges misappropriation of over ₹1,250 crore over the last two decades.
The trust alleges that this amount was siphoned off by its ex-trustees.
Trustee takeover
Allegations of illegal control and financial misconduct
Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Parambir Singh, currently Lilavati Hospital's executive director, stated that the hospital was completed in 1997 by the late trustee Kishor Mehta and his wife Charu Mehta.
However, since 2002, a few relatives have illegally taken control of the hospital when Kishor was unwell. They allegedly continued to do so for two decades.
Audit findings
Forensic audit uncovers financial irregularities
After taking control, the new board of trustees ordered a forensic audit, which exposed financial irregularities of almost ₹1,250 crore.
Permanent Trustee Prashant Kishore Mehta took the findings to Bandra police, but was refused an FIR.
He then moved a Bandra court, which directed police to register the case.
In his FIR, Mehta alleged that "the accused, while working as an alleged trustee in the LKMMT....by allegedly adopting different methods in the purchases of medical equipment, furniture, pictures, computers...embezzled funds."
Rituals
Previous FIRs and allegations of black magic
This isn't the first FIR against ex-trustees. The first was filed in July 2024 for ₹12 crore for cheating and forgery, and then another in December for allegedly misusing ₹44 crore as lawyer fees.
Singh also disclosed some ex-trust employees alleged black magic rituals were performed in the office of permanent trustee Prashant Mehta and his mother.
The trustees claimed black magic was conducted at the hospital and uncovered eight urns with bones and hair in the current trustees' office.
Office
'We dug up the floor and found eight urns'
"Some employees said articles part of black magic practices have been placed under the floor of the current trustees' office. So, in the presence of witnesses and under videography, we dug up the floor and found eight urns."
"They had human remains, bones, hair, and rice and other items used in black magic," Singh said.