Thief leaves 1,710 vaccine doses with an apology

The shots were stolen from the personal protective kit centre of the Civil Hospital in Jind around 12.44am, said authorities.

A thief stole 1,710 doses of Covid-19 doses from a hospital in Haryana’s Jind town on Thursday but left it at a tea stall hours later with an apology note saying they didn’t mean to take away coronavirus shots, state police said.

Jind deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Jitender Katkar said a man handed over a sealed packet to an old man sitting at a tea stall outside the Civil lines police station on Thursday. (Pratik Chorge / HT Photo)

The shots were stolen from the personal protective kit centre of the Civil Hospital in Jind around 12.44am, said authorities.

Jind deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Jitender Katkar said a man handed over a sealed packet to an old man sitting at a tea stall outside the Civil lines police station on Thursday.

“The thief told the old man to hand over the packet to a police personnel and said there is food inside the packet. When the old man brought the packet, the cops found doses inside it. Then, we called the doctors and they checked all vials. No vaccines were found missing,” he said.

Inside the packet, police also found a note.

“The thief had written ‘sorry- I did not know it was corona vaccine’. We are checking the CCTV footage near the tea stall to identify the thief,” the DSP added.

Earlier in the day, police said two men were caught on CCTV footage breaking into the hospital’s store past midnight. “We have studied the footage in which the two men are seeing breaking into three locks to reach the vaccine stock,” the hospital spokesman said.

Civil surgeon Dr Manjeet Singh said: “It seems the thieves came to steal Remdesivir, the medicine to treat Covid-19, but took away the vaccines.”