Mumbai vax scam: Seven FIRs registered; 6 who posed as doctors booked

Bhoiwada police on Wednesday night registered the fifth first information report (FIR), while late Thursday evening, the Bangur Nagar and Borivli police stations filed the sixth and seventh FIRs respectively, in connection with the vaccination scam

Bhoiwada police on Wednesday night registered the fifth first information report (FIR), while late Thursday evening, the Bangur Nagar and Borivli police stations filed the sixth and seventh FIRs respectively, in connection with the vaccination scam. The Bhoiwada police have booked six people, who posed as doctors and held an unauthorised vaccination camp, in May at a private educational institute Poddar Centre in Parel. Mumbai Police has, for the first time, charged members of the bogus vaccination camp group with a section of attempt to commit culpable homicide not amounting to murder in the Bhoiwada police FIR.

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Police officers said the arrested accused - Mahendra Singh, Shrikant Mane, Seema Singh and three others conducted the bogus vaccination camp at Poddar Centre between May 28 and 29. “During the camp, some adulterated medicine in the name of Covishield vaccine was administered to the employees of the institute. The accused collected the Aadhar Card details of the institute staff and issued bogus and forged vaccination certificate in the name of Nanavati and Lifeline Care hospitals. The gang of fake doctors made ₹2,44,800 through this vaccination camp,” said Vinod Kamble, senior inspector of Bhoiwada police station. The case has been registered on the complaint of Badlapur resident Shankar Namdev Kesari, 34, an employee at Poddar Centre.

Vijay Patil, deputy commissioner of police, zone 4, said, “The Mahendra Singh-led group organised the camp at the Poddar Centre and allegedly administered bogus vaccines to its 207 employees.” Singh is presently in the custody of Kandivli police and is one of the key members who executed bogus vaccination camps at various places in Mumbai. “As the accused, Singh, is also involved in this case, we suspect that the camp was organised by the same group, but with different nursing staff and doctor,” said a police inspector from the Bhoiwada police station.

In Bangur Nagar vaccination was done on May 25 and 38 employees of Bank of Baroda were vaccinated, whereas 514 people were vaccinated from Mansi Share and Stock Advertisers Private Limited at Shimpoli, Borivli (West) on May 26 and May 27. The accused Mahendra Singh, Sanjay Gupta, Manish Tripathi, Shrikant Mane and Seema Ahuja are some of the common accused in other FIRs. The group charged ₹1,000 per jab.

During Singh’s interrogation in the Kandivli case, he revealed details about the bogus camp at Parel, following which we started a probe. After contacting Poddar Centre employees in the preliminary probe, it was ascertained that Singh’s group conducted bogus vaccination camp, following which, on the complaint of institute’s employee we registered a criminal offence and have begun an investigation, said DCP Patil.

The police have booked the six accused under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), and 471(Using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 269 (unlawfully or negligent act which likely to spread the infection of dangerous disease), 270 (malignant act which is likely to spread infection of any disease dangerous to life), 274 (adulteration of drugs), 275 (sale of adulterated drugs), 276 (Sale of drug as a different drug or preparation), 34 (common intention) and sections 43 (damage to computer system) and 66C (identity theft) of Information Technology Act and 3 of Epidemic Diseases Act.

The Bhoiwada police will take Singh’s custody after his police custody is over in other cases. The police are now in process of collecting evidence and recording statements of those employees who were administered bogus vaccines.

Fraud group also held camp in Thane

Police officers’ part of the investigation said that during interrogation the accused have revealed that they have also conducted a bogus vaccination drive at the RenewBuy Insurance Company in Pachpakhadi area of Thane on May 26.

After this, they organised a vaccination camp in Borivli, Parel (May 28-29) and then at Hiranandani Heritage in Kandivli on May 30, and later at other places in city.

A civil contractor (who could become a witness in the case) had taken the jab at the Thane camp. After the Poddar administration showed interest in camp, he then introduced them to Shrikant Mane, who along with Seema Ahuja organised a vaccination camp at Parel through Mahendra Singh, the police said.

Singh-led group would mostly tell their ‘victims’ that they had procured the vaccines from Dahisar-based Shivam Hospital, the police said.

Majiwada (Thane) resident Mane and Kalyan resident Ahuja are former employees of controversial global tours and travel agency Cox and Kings group. They played the role of mediators in the fake vaccine scam. The two were produced in court by Bhoiwada police and remanded in police custody till Saturday

Earlier the police had arrested five people, including Singh.