NASHIK: Police have arrested four people, including two health officers of the Dhule Municipal Corporation, on the charge of providing Covid vaccination certificates to 3,191 beneficiaries from Malegaon town without inoculating them.
Dhule superintendent of police Praveen Kumar Patil told TOI, "The health officer of the Dhule Municipal Corporation, Dr Mahesh More, civic medical officer Dr Prashant Patil, vaccinator Umesh Patil and a contract employee, Amol Pathre, were arrested on Saturday and remanded in police custody till January 17. We will interrogate all four of them to ascertain if there are more beneficiaries who got such certificates. We will also find out if more civic employees are a part of this racket."
The racket came to light following a door-to-door check last month in the eastern part of Malegoan town. An official said residents in the eastern part of Malegaon town had shown strong vaccine hesitancy. However, records revealed that many residents had full vaccination certificates issued by the Dhule Municipal Corporation, around 50km from the textile town.
3,191 pay for vaccination certificates without shots
Inspector Nitin Deshmukh of the Dhule city police told TOI that the initial investigation revealed that each of these beneficiaries had allegedly paid between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 to get these vaccine certificates. “These Malegaon beneficiaries travelled 50km and managed to get the certificates with the help of the four arrested,” added Deshmukh.
“Since vaccine hesitancy was very high in those areas, the Malegaon civic body sent a letter to the Dhule Municipal Corporation to ascertain if the beneficiaries had genuinely taken their doses,” added Deshmukh. Dhule municipal commissioner Devidas Tekale set up a probe team after receiving the letter. “The team found that fake sessions with various login IDs on the CoWin App were created at three vaccination centres to show 3,191 beneficiaries were completely vaccinated. In reality, none of these beneficiaries was fully vaccinated,” added the civic chief.
The Dhule Municipal Corporation lodged a complaint against unknown people at the city police station on January 7 under sections 420, 467 and 468 of the Indian Penal Code, besides relevant provisions of the Cyber Crime Act. “The first fake session was created on October 28 last year, where few beneficiaries were given the certificates,” said Deshmukh.
