NEW DELHI: Three employees of a pathology lab in the national capital were arrested for allegedly providing fake RT-PCR test reports, police said on Tuesday.
The accused have been identified as Jitender Sahu (25) and Sunny Singh (29), both residents of Uttam Nagar, and Sunil Kumar (20), a resident of Dwarka Sector-13. They worked at a laboratory in Punjabi Bagh, they said.
A complaint on the matter was filed with the police on May 5. During investigation, police came to know that complainant Umang Gogia had called a person on April 21 for collecting swab samples of his family members for Covid-19 test after his mother tested positive for the virus.
Thereafter, a person reached his home and took samples of his six family members. Gogia was charged Rs 9,000 for the tests. Even after four days, he did not get the test reports. He again contacted the person who assured him to provide the reports. Gogia received his negative report on April 28, the officer said.
He noticed that the date of collection of sample was mentioned wrong. He verified it from the lab at Punjabi Bagh and found that the report was fake, police said.
“During investigation, police identified Singh who came to collect the sample and apprehended him. On his instance, his associates were also nabbed, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) R Sathiyasundaram said.
During interrogation, Singh disclosed that he used to collect swab samples for the lab. On April 21, Sahu asked him to visit the complainant’s house for collection of samples.
When the complainant demanded reports, Sahu created a fake negative report and sent it to Sunny who later gave it to Gogia, they said. Sahu confessed that he used to pay Rs 100-150 per sample to Kumar for fake bills.