Days after all Delhi Police units were asked to prevent black marketing of Remdesivir and Tocilizumab, the inter-state cell of the Crime Branch has arrested four men in two separate operations for alleged black marketing of Remdesivir in the national capital.
Police have recovered 13 vials of Remdesivir injections from their possession.
DCP (crime branch) Monika Bhardwaj said several teams of the crime branch were deployed with the specific task to identify and crack down on such interstate gangs.
“We lodged an FIR after receiving information about two men and arrested them. They have been identified as Talwinder Singh, a resident of Amritsar and Jitender Kumar, a resident of North Delhi’s Roshanara road. Three vials of Ramdesivir have been recovered from their possession. Teams are conducting raids in Punjab to nab the co-accused persons and to recover more vials. During questioning, they disclosed that they are operating a gang in major cities and supplying Remdesivir at a cost between Rs 25,000 and Rs 40,000,” she said.
During questioning, Singh told the police that he was black marketing the injection at a higher price as the demand of the injection was high.
“Talwinder used to hoard the injections in big quantities and supply them as per demand. They supplied the injection across states through one courier company based at Chandni Chowk. Jitender managed the courier service and used to charge Rs 2,000 as commission for supply of one vial.”
“We came to know so far that there is a chain of persons involved in this syndicate of illegal hoarding and supplying of drugs essential for the treatment of COVID-19 patients,” she added.
Bhardwaj further said that the police have arrested two more persons identified as Mohammed Shoaib and Mohan Kumar in a separate operation and recovered 10 vials of Remdesivir from their possession.
In a recent meeting, all the fifteen DCPs and units of the crime branch were directed by their senior officers from Delhi Police Headquarters to take appropriate legal action against the black marketing of the drugs and ensure they are not sold at high prices.
“Police started action after it came to fore that there is a shortage of both the drugs and that some chemists were selling them at high prices. They are now gathering information from their informers on the black marketing of these drugs,” a senior police officer said.