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Mahakumbh Covid testing scam: 2 Uttarakhand officials suspended
The suspended officers are Dr Arjun Singh Sengar, then mela health officer (state health department), and Dr NK Tyagi, then in-charge officer (state health department), Kumbh Mela, said the government statement on Thursday evening
Uttarakhand government has suspended two officers in the Mahakumbh fake Covid testing scam for “indiscipline, carelessness and colluding with the private firms” concerned, thus incurring financial loss to the state exchequer.
The suspended officers are Dr Arjun Singh Sengar, then mela health officer (state health department), and Dr NK Tyagi, then in-charge officer (state health department), Kumbh Mela, said the government statement on Thursday evening.
The action comes in the wake of the report from the district level probe committee on August 14.
The Mahakumbh fake Covid testing scam came to light in June when a Faridkot resident complained to the authorities that he received a message for collecting his Covid-19 report despite never having been tested. The complaint triggered a probe in nearly 100,000 Covid tests conducted during the Kumbh.
On June 17, Haridwar police booked Max Corporate Services, and two private labs -- Nalva Lab of Hissar and Lalchandani Lab of Delhi -- in connection with the scam.
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On June 18, Haridwar police formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to assist the investigation in the cases registered in connection with the scam.
The four-month Mela was curtailed this year to one month (April 1-30) but devotees thronged Haridwar for months despite experts saying rampant violation of Covid protocol could spark a surge in infections. Roughly 9.1 million pilgrims took the holy dip in the Ganga from January 14 to April 27, including at least six million people in April, coinciding with the worst surge in the second wave of the pandemic.
The Mahakumbh coincided with a major spike in Covid cases in Uttarakhand. Between April 1 and April 30, the active cases rose from 2,236 to 55,743, while the total cases during the same period soared from 100, 911 to 180,521.
The Mahakumbh is held every 12 years between Makar Sankranti, which usually falls on the second weekend of January, and Chaitra Poornima, which is celebrated in the last week of April.
