Mumbai Police has arrested four people and detained one other in the fake vaccination scam that came to light early this week. Addressing a press conference in Mumbai today, Additional Commissioner of Police, North Region, Dilip Sawant said that an FIR has been lodged in the case and all the four people arrested have been charged under various sections of IPC dealing with stealing, impersonation, forgery, adulteration of drugs and IT Act.
The case is related to an unauthorized vaccination drive held at Hiranandani Heritage Housing Society in Kandivali late last month, wherein over 300 residents were administered vaccine but none of them suffered any side effect, neither a confirmation message nor the certificate. The residents, however, received forged certificates after almost 15 days, issued in the name of different private hospitals, raising further suspicions.
Talking about the details of the preliminary investigation conducted so far, Mr. Sawant said that the accused have admitted to having conducted such unauthorized drives at nine places. Two of these drives were probably for Tips Industries and Matchbox Pictures. Stating that it is still not clear if the vaccines administered were genuine or not, the police officer said that none of these vaccines have been procured through authorized sources.
Explaining the modus operandi, Mr. Sawant said the vaccination drive was planned and organized by Mahendra Pratap Singh, who works as a clerk with some medical associations, and Sanjay Gupta, an event manager. They were helped by Chandan Singh alias Lalit and Nitin Mode, employees of two different private hospitals, who stole the official ids and generated fake vaccination certificates from the CoWin app. Another person named Karim, who allegedly provided the vaccine, has been detained in Madhya Pradesh’s Satna. Two other persons are still missing.
Meanwhile, the four arrested accused were produced before a local court in Mumbai and have been sent to police custody till 25th June.
