Mumbai: Over 2 thousand victims of fake vaccination, FIR registered
Mumbai police arrested Dr Shivraj Pataria and his wife Nita Pataria on Thursday.
State public prosecutor Deepak Thakare informed the HC that over 2,053 people received fake Covid shots.
Senior civic counsel Anil Sakhare said when people realised that certificates were from three different hospitals in one camp, BMC started questioning the hospitals. The bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarni instructed BMC to find what was the effect of this "fake vaccine" on people. "Do they have antibodies? Were they given saline or water?" the bench asked and said, "They should be taken care of now."
The HC asked, "Did none of the society members suspect anything? Here vaccine was administered to 390 and they paid money in the evening?." It added, "Despite all your efforts, this has happened. So, what are you doing about it?"
A police officer from Bangur Nagar police station said, “We received a complaint from Bank of Baroda’s Evershine Nagar branch about the same arrested accused who vaccinated 40 employees on April 23 and May 25. The bank paid Rs 35,000 to Mahendra Singh who used to arrange the camps. The employees did not get vaccine certificates.”
On Thursday, the Borivli police also registered an FIR, the seventh one in the scam, on the complaint from a Borivli-based share broker about a fake vaccination camp at Shimpoli, Borivli West where 514 people were vaccinated. The share broker paid R6.47 lakh to Mahendra for the camp. All five FIRs are registered under Sections 268 (public nuisance), 270 (doing any act known to spread infection or disease dangerous to life), 274 (adulteration of drugs), 275 (sale of adulterated drugs), 419 (impersonation), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 470 (forging document) and others of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the IT Act.
