Kumbh Mela Covid test fraud accused held

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) has made the first arrest on Thursday in the Kumbh Mela Covid test fraud case. As per reports, this arrest is of a middleman of Nalwa Lab of Hisar, Haryana. This middleman was responsible for providing manpower and equipment to Nalwa Lab during the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar.

Haridwar (Uttarakhand): The Special Investigation Team (SIT) has made the first arrest on Thursday in the Kumbh Mela Covid test fraud. As per reports, this arrest is of a middleman of Nalwa Lab of Hisar, Haryana. This middleman was responsible for providing manpower and equipment to Nalwa Lab during the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar. As per information received from sources, the arrested middleman was looking after the data entry work. The name of this arrested middleman is Ashish, who is a resident of Haryana. There is speculation of several more arrests in this case in the coming days.

Ten private labs were authorised by the Uttarakhand government for the Covid-19 RT-PCR test in Haridwar Kumbh. Max Corporate Service of Delhi was one of the 10 labs assigned the responsibility. This same company had further given this responsibility to two of its authorised labs - Dr Lal Chandni of Delhi and Nalwa of Hisar, Haryana. However, around one lakh Covid test reports issued by these two labs are under suspicion.

The scam was unearthed after a person in Punjab got a call that the report of his RT_PCR test done in Haridwar, has come negative. That person didn't even travel to Haridwar during the Kumbh Mela. He complained to the local administration, which took the issue seriously. The same person also informed the matter to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

The ICMR sought a reply from the Health Secretary of Uttarakhand and ordered an inquiry. In the preliminary investigation, about one lakh corona tests came under suspicion. The investigation was started and it was revealed that these two labs had conducted hundreds of fake tests registered under the same phone number, address, and Aadhar card.

Following this, Haridwar District Magistrate C Ravi Shankar had constituted an investigation team under the leadership of Chief Development Officer (CDO) Saurabh Gaharwar. At the same time, on the orders of Haridwar District Magistrate, Chief Medical Officer Haridwar, SN Jha filed a case against Max Corporate Service and its two authorised labs Dr Lal Chandani of Delhi and Nalwa of Hisar in Haryana under various sections. A case was registered and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was also constituted to investigate the Kumbh Corona test fraud, which is investigating the matter separately.