Ahmedabad: The black marketing of life-saving drugs even in times of pandemic do not seem to come to an end. In a new incident, four persons, including 3 staff of a private hospital in Ahmedabad, have been arrested for supposedly trying to sell Remdesivir injection in the black market.
In Ahmedabad, the arrests were made by the Police Detection of Crime Branch (DCB). Three of the four arrested were associated with a dedicated COVID-19 hospital.
The 4 persons arrested by the crime branch are Fayaz Seeda (28), Bharat Buch Meena (24), Kusum Srivastava and Ashish Edwin. According to a report in Indian Express, Seeda works as a salesman at Gautam Medical Store near Gayatri Hospital in Ramol, Meena is a supervisor at Sarthak Covid Hospital in Ghodasar. Kusum and Ashish work as medical staff at Sarthak Covid Hospital.
The arrested have been charged under sections 420 (cheating) 120b (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and other sections of the Essential Commodities Act and Disaster Management Act.
“We had received a tip-off that a certain salesman from a chemist shop in Ramol area was trying to sell remdesivir doses for Rs 27,000 each in black. A decoy customer was sent and the accused was called at Hatkeshwar circle in Amraiwadi on Thursday when a team arrested the accused Fayaz. The accused told us that he procured the drugs from two medical staff at Sarthak Covid-19 Hospital in Ghodasar. When we raided the house of Ashish Edwin, he told us that he has four more vials of remdesivir kept in his fridge which was then seized. The accused told us that he was given these seven vials by hospital supervisor Bharat Buch who was then held by our team,” the report quoted Ahmedabad DCB official as saying.
As per the police reports, Meena told cops that he did not return Remdesivir bottles to the hospital management in case any COVID-19 patient died or got discharged from the hospital.
When further questioned the accused told police that he started keeping the life-saving drugs at his place and later, he handed over the vials to Kusum and Ashish to sell them in the black market.
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