E-Paper
2.40 lakh doses of Covaxin found in an abandoned truck in MP
The driver of the truck had gone missing but the vaccine was found to be safe inside the refrigerator, found to be in working condition.
A truck taking 2.40 lakh Covaxin doses to Karnal in Haryana was found abandoned on Friday under mysterious circumstances over 900 kms away in Madhya Pradesh’s Narsinghpur district, police said on Saturday. The incident comes at a time when the Covid-19 vaccination drive is struggling to pick up pace due to a shortage in supply of vaccines.
The driver of the truck had gone missing but the vaccine was found to be safe inside the refrigerator, found to be in working condition, said Vipul Shrivastava, superintendent of police (SP), Narsinghpur.
“The truck with Tamil Nadu registration number was going to Karnal in Haryana from Hyderabad. A few people on Friday informed us that a truck was left abandoned in the Kareli area of the district. Police reached the spot and checked the papers to find bills worth ₹8 crore of Covaxin,” said the police officer.
Shrivastava said the truck was owned by a transport company in Gurgaon, which when contacted said the driver, Vikas Mishra, was not reachable for the past 12 hours. Cyber police tracked down the driver’s mobile number near a Dhaba in Narsinghpur. “While the mobile phone was found in nearby bushes, the driver was nowhere to be found,” he added.
Later, the transport company sent another driver to Narsinghpur to take the truck to Karnal. The truck left for its destination on Friday night while the police continued to investigate the driver’s disappearance.
