Mumbai Police has arrested laboratory technician for issuing fake negative COVID-19 reports to several people. According to reports, a lab technician named Umar was arrested after it was found that he had issued at least 37 fake negative COVID-19 test reports. This has come at a time when Maharashtra has seen a huge surge of Coronavirus cases for last several weeks.
The matter came to light after a woman approached police saying her COVID-19 test report is not correct. 31-year-old Charu Chauhan had lodged a complaint with the police saying that there are some errors in the test report issued to her by Umar. Following this, police probed the matter and found that the woman was given a forged test report.
According to the police, the lab technician used PDF files of existing COVID-19 negative test reports to prepare the fake reports. The investigation also found that Umar had issued such fake reports to at least 37 people. After this, the lab technician was arrested for forgery and also for violating the pandemic rules.
Contrary to other cases where people themselves obtain fake COVID-19 negative reports for travelling, in this case the lab technician was cheating the people who had come to his lab for testing. According to police sources, he used to collect test samples of suspected Covid-19 patients by going to their homes. For symptomatic cases, he used to send the samples to the lab, but for asymptomatic cases, he used to collect Rs 1,000 but never sent the samples to the lab. “He pocketed the money after each such asymptomatic case in the past month. We have found 37 false reports,” the police officer said.
The officer added that the role of the lab in this scam will also be investigated, and appropriate action will be taken.