Police bust racket, arrest four for selling Remdesivir in black market

Done/ALVI
(With Pic)
Faiz.Siddiqui@timesgroup.com
Kanpur The commissionerate police's crime branch on Friday busted a racket with the arrest of four persons, involving two nursing staff of Lala Lajpat Rai (LLR) hospital and a private hospital worker who were selling Remdesivir in the black market.Police identified the arrested persons as Vikram and Chetansh Chauhan, both nursing staff members of LLR besides Anshul Sharma, a private hospital worker and a private person Ayush Kamal.
"Working on the specific inputs with regard to black marketing of the Remdesivir injection vials, we roped in the crime branch team, led by DCP (crime) Salman Taj Patil, who initiated the investigations. A police personnel from the Kakadeo police station became a decoy customer in which he traced one Ayush Kamal, a black-marketeer hailing from Vijay Nagar area of the city” said police commissioner Asim Kumar Arun.
A sting operation was conducted and he managed to strike a deal with Kamal for getting a vial for Rs 30,000-Rs 35,000. Subsequently, the police arrested Anshul Sharma, a private hospital worker, Arun said.
During interrogation Kamal revealed names of two LLR hospital nursing staff members involved in the racket. He said that the LLR nursing staff Vikram, used to steal Remdevisir injections meant for patients for the hospital and sell them to his staff member Chetansh for Rs 10,000 each. From Chetansh, Anshul, a private hospital worker used to buy each vial for Rs 20,000 and further sell it to him for Rs 30,000 to Rs 35,000 per vial, the commissioner said.
Police later arrested Vikram and Chetansh besides Ayush, who confessed to their crime, the city police commissioner further said.
He said that NSA would be slapped against anyone resorting to black marketing of Remdesivir. "Police are now trying to procure the call detail records of the arrested persons to nab other members of the racket," the commissioner added.
With the shortage of Remdevisir in the open market, anti-social elements are leaving no chance to exploit the demand for the drug, and are hoarding it and selling it in the black market. The injection of various brands are being sold in the range of Rs 1000-Rs 3500 in an open market.
Not long ago, the commissionerate police had seized 265 Remdesivir injections from the possession of three people, including a Haryana resident in the city's South area.