The arrest was made following an investigation by the police based on a complaint call on Thursday alleging that Genestrings lab in Malviya Nagar was involved in preparing fake Covid reports.
On probing, police found that the doctor with the help of his two aides used to telephonically send the report to the two lab technicians, who used to prepare the reports on their laptop using the letterhead of the said lab provided to them by the doctor. Later, the accused used to deliver test results to people without even registering the samples in the lab.
The scam came to light after one Vipul Saini called the police and informed them that in April this year, he along with his 45 relatives had given their samples for COVID testing to the two lab technicians.
However, on April 25, another person (known to the complainant) gave his sample to the lab and on April 26 he tested positive for COVID, but he did not show any symptoms of COVID which made him suspicious of the report. On April 28 the person again gave his sample to another laboratory where he tested negative.
After two days, the complainant along with the lab technicians went to the Genestrings Lab and cross-checked the facts only to find that the COVID report was not in the records of the said lab. Thereafter, they approached the police.
DCP Bhatia stated, " One of the lab technicians then stated that he along with his cousin used to collect home samples and give them to the doctor working in Genestrings Lab without making any entry in the record of Genestrings Lab. The doctor used to share the result with them through an excel sheet and then the technicians would print the result on the fake letter of Genestrings Lab which was provided to him by the doctor."
Explaining the modus operandi, the DCP said, "Two of the accused are lab technicians who used to collect Covid samples from houses and later hand over the said samples to the doctor, application scientist at Genestrings Lab without making an entry in the lab records."
The five of the arrested men have committed the crime of cheating and forgery by creating the COVID results on the fake letterhead of Genestrings Lab and by not entering the data of the virus infection samples in the lab, the officer told IANS.
Commenting on the incident, Chetan Kohli, COO of Genestrings Diagnostic Centre told
The Hindu, "On being approached by a few patients to authenticate reports bearing our lab's name, we found out that they were not issued by us nor tested at our lab. We immediately called the local police station in-charge for the investigation of what seemed to be a fake report issue."
"All our reports have QR code which can be easily used to distinguish the authenticity of reports. We reiterate our commitment to the service of the nation during this pandemic and assure testing with integrity and quality," Kohli said.
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