Police say the duo held a test camp at an office, collected swab samples but instead of sending them for test, they used Thyrocare’s letterhead to forge the results
They collected the samples but did not send them for the test. Representation pic
Two lab owners have been arrested for fabricating COVID-19 test reports and defrauding employees of a company that had asked them to set up a test camp at their office, which was permitted by the Centre recently. Rabale MIDC police said that one of them collected samples for Thyrocare diagnostics.
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Pravin Industries had approached Devidas Ghule of Midtown Diagnostic Laboratory in Thane for the tests. Ghule passed on the work to Mohammed Wasim Aslam Sheikh of Perfect Health Pathology in Kalyan which works an associate lab for collecting swab samples for Thyrocare.
On April 8, Sheikh collected the swab samples of 133 employees, but did not send the swabs to Thyrocare. “Perfect Health Pathology used Thyrocare’s letterhead and issued COVID-19 negative report to all the 133 workers. The lab had collected R650 from each person for the test,” said an officer.
On learning about the forgery, Thyrocare’s legal adviser Virudev Sarvade filed a complaint at Rabale MIDC police station. Police filed an FIR on Wednesday under Sections 418, 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) 470 (forged document), 471 (using forged document as genuine), 500 (defamation), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC.
They arrested Ghule, 44 and Sheikh, 32, on Thursday, and recovered computers, lab equipment and Rs 72,000 from their labs. “We are now investigating since when the duo were involved in this racket and how many reports have they forged so far,” said Nitin Gite, senior inspector of Rabale MIDC police station.
Rs 650 - Amount they took from each employee
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