Sleuths of Hyderabad City Police Commissioner’s Task Force, South Zone, on Friday arrested two lab technicians and travel agents in Humayun Nagar and Malakpet police limits for allegedly arranging fake negative RTPCR reports and full-dose vaccination certificates.
The lab technicians would send the dummy samples for negative diagnosis, and by an arrangement with a primary urban health centre, without administration of any dose, would get vaccination certificates, the police said.
In the first case, P. Laxman, who owns a diagnostics centre at Malakpet, used to collect between ₹2000 and ₹3000 for test reports to rule out COVID-19 infection.
While mixing the collected nasopharyngeal swab samples in viral transport media for diagnosis at a higher centre is the practice, the accused used to tear up the kits and send only dummy samples for the ‘negative result’.
65 ‘reports’ seized
Sixty-five such reports and 20 sample collection kits were seized from him.
A similar modus operandi was followed by another accused, medical lab technician Md. Tariq Habeeb, who mostly catered his services to tourism and travel agents.
Joining hands with computer operators at urban primary health centres, such as with one Ms. Kumari at Afzal Sagar, he obtained full vaccination certificates without the actual administration of the doses.
Meanwhile, three travel agents - Gulam Musthafa Shakeel of Mehdipatnam, Abdul Basheer of Asif Nagar and Irfan Ur Rub Ansari - were arrested.
The police seized 50 fake COVID-19 vaccination certificates and 10 negative result reports in the raid. A full investigation is underway.
