Medical teams fanned out across Indore on Tuesday, going door to door to check on children who fell ill after lunch at Shishukunj School last Saturday. The health department has begun active monitoring of the affected students, with doctors visiting around 30 homes and assessing the children's condition firsthand.

Symptoms of gastroenteritis and dehydration were found in several children during these visits. Doctors spoke to parents, gathered information on the children's current state, and confirmed that no child's condition had turned critical. Officials said the exercise will continue Wednesday, with teams visiting remaining affected households.

More than 150 students had complained of stomach pain, vomiting, restlessness, and weakness after eating their school meal on Saturday. Most of those affected were from classes up to the fourth standard.

The school kitchen was sealed by a joint team from the district administration and the food safety department on Monday, following an inspection that lasted over four hours. During that visit, officials found expired spices and snack packets inside the kitchen — including ten packets of masalas and two packets of namkeen with dates that had already lapsed. A case has been registered against the school.

Twenty-three food samples were collected — including paneer, milk, ice cream, dal, prepared food, spices, and water — and sent to a laboratory. The actual cause of the illness will only be confirmed once the lab report arrives.

Chief Medical and Health Officer Dr. Madhav Hasani said 85 students had been sent home as a precaution when they felt unwell during or after school hours. The school also received around 35 emails from parents raising concerns about their children's health. No child is currently admitted to any hospital, and all are reported to be in a stable condition, officials said.

On Monday, worried parents had gathered at the school premises to protest. By Tuesday, attendance was noticeably lower than usual — and most students who did come arrived carrying tiffin boxes from home. The school management had emailed parents after the kitchen was sealed, requesting them to send home-cooked food with their children until further notice.

The case has put pressure on school authorities and triggered a broader conversation about food safety standards in private school kitchens. Expired ingredients found in an institutional kitchen serving hundreds of young children is a serious lapse, and parents are demanding accountability beyond just the sealing of the kitchen. The investigation is ongoing.

In a dramatic scene on the streets of Indore on Friday evening, a young man suddenly stepped in front of the moving convoy of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Dr. Mohan Yadav, waving a banner and crying out for justice. The moment was captured on video and has since gone viral across social media — a son's desperate last resort after five months of being ignored by the police and the health department.

The young man is Rohan Chauhan. His mother is Manju Chauhan. And his story raises some of the most uncomfortable questions that modern India keeps being forced to ask about its healthcare system: Who is actually treating our patients? Who is verifying their qualifications? And who is held accountable when a life is lost?

The Convoy Moment: A Son's Cry Reaches the Chief Minister

On Friday evening, as CM Mohan Yadav's convoy passed through Indore, Rohan Chauhan stepped forward without warning. He held a banner and began shouting loudly, demanding that the Chief Minister stop and listen. Security personnel moved immediately, but CM Yadav ordered the convoy to halt.

Rohan then handed the Chief Minister a written memorandum detailing the circumstances of his mother's death and demanding action against those responsible. He warned that if justice was not delivered soon, he would launch a public agitation.

The CM receiving the memorandum does not, by itself, guarantee action. But the fact that a young man felt compelled to risk his safety to stop a VIP convoy — and that it worked — speaks volumes about the state of institutional accountability in the case.

What Happened at Harsh Clinic: The Night of October 6

The incident at the centre of Rohan's fight dates back to the night of October 6, 2025 — over five months ago.

Harsh Clinic is located in the Khatiwala Tank area of Indore. Rohan alleges that his mother Manju Chauhan was brought to the clinic and, without proper examination or diagnosis, was administered dangerous injections. Shortly after the injections, her condition deteriorated rapidly. She died the same day.

After her death, the family alleged medical negligence and demanded answers — along with her treatment documents and a death certificate. What followed was nearly two and a half hours of chaos at the clinic, with family members and residents confronting the staff.

The police, health department, and drug inspector teams arrived at the scene. After an initial inspection, the clinic was sealed.

What the Inspection Found

The health department's inspection of Harsh Clinic revealed significant and serious irregularities.

The clinic was registered in the name of Dr. Gyan Chand Panjwani. However, investigators found that for the past three months, Dr. Panjwani himself had not been physically present at the clinic. Instead, an assistant had been running the clinic in his place — treating patients, administering medications, and essentially operating a medical facility without a qualified doctor on the premises.

More alarming still was the physical setup: the clinic was functioning not as a basic outpatient facility, but as what was effectively a nursing home, with 15 beds set up inside. The clinic's registration did not permit this scale of operations.

CMHO (Chief Medical and Health Officer) Dr. Madhav Hasani confirmed at the time that preliminary findings had revealed "major irregularities." He stated that investigations were underway to determine exactly how Manju Chauhan's condition deteriorated after treatment and the circumstances of her death.

The Pakistan Degree Allegation: A Charge That Cannot Be Ignored

Rohan Chauhan's memorandum to CM Yadav contains a charge that has added an entirely new and explosive dimension to the case. He has alleged that the doctor whose name the clinic bears — Dr. Gyan Chand Panjwani — holds a medical degree from Pakistan, not from an Indian institution.

This is an allegation that demands urgent official verification. India's Medical Council Act requires that foreign medical degrees be recognised and verified by the National Medical Commission (NMC) before a doctor can practice in India. A degree from Pakistan, a country with which India has suspended most bilateral relations, would face exceptional scrutiny — and if used to register a clinic without proper verification, could constitute a serious criminal violation.

The NMC maintains a registry of registered allopathic practitioners in India. The question of whether Dr. Gyan Chand Panjwani's registration was valid, and whether it was obtained on the basis of a verified degree, is now squarely before the health authorities of Madhya Pradesh.

The Doctor's Version of Events

Dr. Gyan Chand Panjwani gave his own account of the incident at the time it occurred. He stated that Manju Chauhan had been brought to the clinic by her family on September 18 — not October 6 — and that she was suffering from a mental illness. He said he was not personally present at the clinic on that date, and his assistant had administered a saline drip as preliminary treatment.

According to Dr. Panjwani, the family subsequently took Manju to a different private hospital, and she died at that second facility the same day. He argued that the dispute arose because the family was asking for treatment documents and a death certificate — implying the confrontation was over paperwork, not negligence.

There are obvious inconsistencies between the doctor's account and the family's version, including the date discrepancy (September 18 vs. October 6), the nature of the treatment (saline drip vs. "dangerous injection"), and the location of death. These are precisely the inconsistencies that a proper police investigation and post-mortem would resolve.

The Core Failure: No Post-Mortem, No FIR

This is where Rohan Chauhan's anger becomes entirely justified — and where institutional accountability collapses.

He explicitly told CM Yadav in his memorandum that no post-mortem was conducted on his mother's body. In a case where the family alleges death due to a wrongly administered injection, the post-mortem is not optional — it is the single most critical piece of medical evidence. Without it, the cause of death cannot be independently established, and the case becomes a matter of one family's word against a clinic's denial.

Beyond the post-mortem, Rohan alleges that neither the police nor the health department have taken concrete action in the five months since his mother died. The clinic was sealed in October 2025. But sealing is an administrative action, not a criminal one. The family wants to know: has an FIR been registered? Has the assistant who was operating the clinic been identified, questioned, and charged? Has Dr. Panjwani's medical registration been formally scrutinised? Has the degree allegation been investigated?

Five months of silence suggests that the answer to most of these questions may be no.

The Bigger Picture: India's Ghost Doctor Crisis

Rohan Chauhan's case is one story. But it sits within a much larger and deeply troubling national pattern.

India has an acute shortage of qualified doctors, particularly in semi-urban and rural areas. The shortage creates a market for unqualified practitioners — people who operate under the cover of registered names, fake degrees, or outdated credentials. The NMC has repeatedly flagged this issue. State health departments conduct periodic raids. Clinics are sealed. And then, months later, they reopen, sometimes under different names.

The 15-bed setup at Harsh Clinic — functioning effectively as an unauthorised nursing home while registered as a simple clinic — is a textbook example of how this system works in practice. A registration that permits basic outpatient care is stretched, step by step, into a facility treating inpatients, administering injections, and managing conditions requiring hospital-level care.

The assistant running the clinic in Dr. Panjwani's absence is another common feature of this ecosystem: a qualified doctor lends their name and registration to a facility, collects a fee, and rarely or never shows up. Who is accountable when something goes wrong? The registered doctor denies presence. The assistant claims to have been following instructions. The patient's family has no one to hold.

What Needs to Happen Now

Rohan Chauhan's convoy protest has put this case back in the news. The Chief Minister has received the memorandum. The political moment exists to act. Here is what accountability looks like in this case:

1. FIR under Section 304A (Causing Death by Negligence): If the family's account is accurate that an injection was administered without proper examination and caused the death, this is not a civil dispute — it is a criminal matter.

2. Retrospective post-mortem or forensic review: While five months have passed, a forensic review of available evidence — medical records, drug purchase records at the clinic, witness statements — can still establish a picture of what happened.

3. NMC verification of Dr. Panjwani's degree and registration: This should have happened the day the clinic was sealed. If the degree is indeed from Pakistan and not verified by the NMC, the registration of Harsh Clinic is itself illegal.

4. Action against the assistant: Operating a medical facility without a license is a criminal offence under the Clinical Establishments Act. The assistant who ran Harsh Clinic for three months in the absent doctor's name must be identified and prosecuted.

5. Health department accountability: Why did the CMHO's investigation from October 2025 not result in any formal action? Who signed off on the decision not to pursue the case further?

Key Takeaways

• Rohan Chauhan stopped CM Dr. Mohan Yadav's convoy in Indore on March 6, 2026, demanding justice for his mother Manju Chauhan, who allegedly died after being given a dangerous injection at Harsh Clinic in Khatiwala Tank.
• Harsh Clinic is registered in the name of Dr. Gyan Chand Panjwani, but had been run by an unqualified assistant for three months in the doctor's absence.
• The clinic was functioning as an unauthorised nursing home with 15 beds, far beyond its registration scope.
• Rohan alleges the treating doctor holds a Pakistan-issued medical degree, a charge demanding urgent NMC verification.
• The clinic was sealed in October 2025 following two and a half hours of protests by residents and family members, but no criminal action or post-mortem followed.
• Rohan has warned of a public agitation if justice is not delivered soon.
• CM Yadav accepted the memorandum after halting his convoy.