HYDERABAD: Kalapathar police on Friday arrested a data entry operator working on an outsourcing basis at a Covid-19 Vaccination Centre (CVC) on charges of issuing vaccination certificates without administering the vaccine, and three others involved in the scam. According to the police, Mohd Saif, 19, charged Rs 1,000 per certificate and was helped by his two associates Mohd Misbahullah and Mohd Fareed. The fourth person to be arrested was Mohd Aslam working in an MNC who obtained a certificate from Saif.
Charminar ACP G. Biksham Reddy said copies of Aadhaar cards, vaccination certificates, mobile phones and other material were seized from the accused. Police found Aslam who reported working a few days ago, was asked to produce a vaccination certificate. As he was hesitant to receive the vaccine due to fear of side effects, he approached his friend and through them came into contact with Saif.
Saif agreed to provide a vaccination certificate without administering the vaccine to Aslam. As he was in charge of the computer systems at the CVC at Saroornagar, Saif had the credentials to the software issuing vaccination certificates. Taking advantage of this, he issued a certificate to Aslam. He had also issued vaccination certificates to nine others.
Task Force sleuths tracing receivers of fake certificates
The South Zone Task Force is tracking the people who obtained Covid vaccination certificates without getting themselves vaccinated. Recently, the Task Force busted a scam involving travel agents who arranged such certificates for their customers and arrested five people.
Among those arrested was a diagnostic lab owner Thareeq Habeeb and three travel agents Musthafa Shakeel, Abdul Basheer and Irfan Ansari, and a Primary Health Care staffer. South Zone Task Force Additional DCP G Chakravarthy said that 120 fake certificates were seized at the instance of the accused. These were used to travel to places like Mumbai, Delhi, Rishikesh etc.