Remdesivir black marketing: Kingpin nabbed from Panipat

CHANDIGARH: Haryana Police on Monday arrested the kingpin of a racket in connection with black-marketing of Remdesivir drug, which is in high demand for the treatment of Covid-19 patients, from Panipat district.
The arrested accused has been identified as Pardeep, a resident of Sector-13/17 in Panipat.
A Haryana Police spokesperson said the primary probe had revealed that the arrested accused used to buy injection from an Uttarakhand resident for Rs 12,000 per vial and then sold the same between Rs 15,000 and Rs 30 000.
Pardeep had already black marketed 650 injections out of 750 vials brought so far. Of these, he reportedly gave 100 injections to his nephew Sumit, 150 to one Saksham and 40 injections to another accused Keshav for selling in the black market.
It may be mentioned here that acting on a tip-off, the police on April 27 had nabbed three youths from Panipat on the charges of black-marketing of Remdesivir injection and recovered 19 vials from their possession. They were taken on police remand and during the course of the remand period, the accused had revealed that they had purchased the seized vials from Pardeep, who runs a medical store at a hospital located on Sanoli Road in the district.
Soon after getting this information, a police team immediately nabbed Pradeep and when interrogated, the accused confessed to have been involved in black-marketing of the vials.
On completion of the police remand of accused Sumit, Saksham and Keshav, they were produced in local court that sent them to judicial custody. Accused Pradeep is on four-day police remand for intensive interrogation.
During investigation, it also came to light that the wrapper of the seized vials was quite different from company’s injection and seemed that these were not original. The cops have requested the public to beware of such gangs involved in black-marketing and immediately inform the authorities.