`Researcher' staged attack on himself to grab limelight: cops

Surendranagar-based `researcher' Dr Mukesh Shukla, who claimed last week that he was attacked with a chemical spray and received a threat from ISIS, had concocted the whole story for publicity, police said today.

A joint investigation by Surendranagar police and Cyber Crime Cell of Ahmedabad Crime Branch found that Shukla, who is in his 60s, himself prepared the `threat letter' written in Arabic, and later staged the `chemical attack', said Surendranagar Superintendent of Police Dipak Meghani.

On April 21, Shukla, who claims to have conducted research on AIDS, lodged an FIR stating that three men attacked him with a chemical spray near his house. They also looted Rs 24,000 and a pen drive which had crucial data related to his HIV-AIDS research, he said.

Shukla was in news a few years ago when he claimed that he had developed `bio-active drugs' for treatment of AIDS, malaria, jaundice and heart diseases using plant extracts, and had been granted a patent in the US.

"A month prior to the attack he had approached us with a threat letter written in Arabic, and claimed that ISIS had threatened to kill him if he did not hand over his AIDS treatment formula," the SP said.

The police however found after examining Shukla's computer that he had drafted the threat letter himself using the Google translator service.

"The chemical sprayed on him was similar to pepper spray used by women for self-defence. Shukla had bought two spray bottles from a mall in Ahmedabad on March 3 and later cooked up the story of attack," said Meghani. When police confronted Shukla with these findings, he confessed that he made up the whole story out of frustration as the people hadn't taken notice of his efforts of 28 years to find cure for diseases like AIDS and malaria.

He also wanted to gain sympathy of some people from whom he had borrowed huge amounts of money, the SP said.
Asked if police would take any action against him for the false complaint, the SP said they would only file a report about the FIR being baseless in the court, as per the procedure.