A man who you wouldn't give a second glance to if you pass him on your way. The story of a Very ordinary man from a simple middle-class background, who shook the establishment to its core when things hit close to home.
This is the story of Ashish Chaturvedi
Ashish's father is a government school teacher and his mother, a homemaker and she means the whole world to Ashish. He isn't your usual protagonist or a hero. He was just a student who had completed his BCA, was a part of RSS, and was looking forward to starting his career in IT, but life had other plans for him. His mother was detected with cancer in 2009. While he was running from pillar to post to get his mother treated he observed that the doctors treating her were not competent and their negligence was evident from the treatment of his mother. In 2010, Ashish had the misfortune of losing his dear mother to cancer due to a botched-up surgery due to the inefficiency of the doctors treating her.
It was then that Ashish felt that there was something that was just not right with the medical system in the local hospitals. He started investigating in his capacity and researched the issue in detail, which led to him finding out that there is a huge Nexus of fake doctors who have never appeared for their entrance exams for any subsequent exams but they still have an MBBS degree or a masters degree in medicine and treating patients in various hospitals and clinics in the state.
Ashish then decided to dedicate his life to revealing the biggest scam to hit Madhya Pradesh. The VYAPAM Scam!
Come 2011, Ashish managed to plan and execute a sting operation revealing the participation of doctors, candidates, politicians, bureaucracy, and the vyapam personal in forming a syndicate putting inefficient and ineligible doctors into the system who eventually played with the health and lives of people throughout the state and the nation. He even found a doctor who watched back-to-back shows of a film in Bhopal while somebody else was appearing for his entrance exam in Delhi just because he could not be seen in public while his entrance exam was going on. Ashish filed the 1st complaint about the scam in 2011 after getting proof in the form of the sting operation video.
Ashish then went on to become the prime witness in the vyapam scam. It became a fight for justice and a fight for his own life when there started several attempts to murder him, beginning with Ashish getting kidnapped for the first time in 2012 by a nexus of the doctors who owed their degrees to the vyapam scam. In 2012 the media started covering Ashish's story and the scam extensively.
In 2013 before the vyapam entrance exams for MBBS in MP, Ashish intimated the government in advance about the paper for PMT getting leaked, of which the government took no note at the time. but these same exams had to be scrapped when the papers got leaked and several people complained about the same, forcing the government to take an action. Ashish was also provided with security by the courts. Since Ashish used to travel on his cycle the security personnel he was provided with also followed him on a cycle and sometimes even rode pillion with Ashish on his cycle.
Till 2014 there were a total of 12 murder attempts on Ashish which he managed to escape. the security he was provided with at times turned into a threat for him because even they didn't put in efforts into protecting him due to pressures from various quarters. the security personnel used to film his every move, so much so that at one time a shopkeeper didn't even sell him a pack of biscuits thinking that if somebody else kills Ashish, he may get blamed for selling Ashish poisoned biscuits.
He became a sitting duck for a total of 17 attempts on his life by 2015 when other witnesses were being constantly killed, and till now, more than 70 people have been killed, who were in some way or the other linked to the vyapam scam. Even then he did not give up the fight for justice to save thousands and thousands of lives that were and would be affected by inefficient people who were falsely called doctors.
Finally, in July 2015 this case was handed over to the CBI by the supreme court of India in the hope of a fair investigation. Many big people have been named in the scam till now but there hasn't been a big conviction yet.
Ashish is even now fighting this case in the courts and recently he was even put in jail for some time, but later released. Ashish has been constantly pressurized by officers, politicians, doctors, and many people who are involved in the scam to give up his pursuit for justice and it is only through his grit, inner strength, and maybe the blessings of his mother, that he is still fighting the good fight and hoping that justice will one day be delivered.