Lucknow, Aug. 13: The owner of a clinic who allegedly took thousands of epilepsy patients for a ride by promising them a “miracle cure through ayurvedic herbs” was arrested by an Uttaranchal police team this morning.

R.K. Gupta, the owner of Neeraj Clinic, was reportedly on his way to surrender before a court in Dehra Dun when the police team arrested him at 6.30 am at Saharanpur in western Uttar Pradesh.

Gupta, who investigating officers said is not a registered medical practitioner, was booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and Section 420 of the IPC as well as for violating the licence act following a raid on his clinic by the state drug controller last week. The drug controller in Uttaranchal, S.K. Mazumder, said the so-called drugs that Gupta used to sell had high doses of narcotics.

Uttaranchal High Court had on Wednesday rejected Gupta’s plea for anticipatory bail and asked him to approach the trial court where a case had been lodged against him. It also directed the owner of the clinic in Rishikesh to surrender in court in three days.

The state government had ordered a crackdown on the clinic following complaints by some members of the Indian Medical Association that narcotics were being administered to patients.

Police said they received over a dozen complaints from across the country, alleging that not only did Gupta’s medicines not cure them, but they had also developed severe side effects. “We are happy to have arrested Gupta as we have to learn the exact location of the factories where the psychotropic drugs with narcotic content were being manufactured,” said senior superintendent of police D.V.S. Prasad.

Gupta said after the arrest: “I have heard that enforcement agencies seized 61 kg of medicines from my laboratory. I can swear that these medicines are not at all narcotic substances.”

In 1999, some doctors of epilepsy had approached the Indian Medical Association with complaints against Gupta, following which the body had — in 2000 — declared him a quack. Subsequently, the state government had withdrawn his appointment as honorary ayurveda adviser.

But Gupta stayed afloat by flaunting photographs of himself with eminent people, including former Prime Ministers. Advertisements on front pages of newspapers claimed: “The treatment is holistic. Precious herbs from dense forests on the banks of holy mother Ganga are collected and used for preparation of holistic medicines.”

A doctor who used to work in the clinic said: “The majority of the patients used to be overawed by the ambience. Behind the rhetoric over a breakthrough in treatment was a clever use of allopathic drugs and narcotics.”

Gupta pretended to go to the Himalayas early in the morning to get the herbs, but he actually bought the pills locally at Rs 60 a kg, said Jagdish Raturi, a former employee.

However, an official at Neeraj Clinic rubbished the claims. “It is a conspiracy hatched by giants in allopathic treatment who felt threatened by Gupta’s popularity.”