NEW DELHI: Five people, including two Union Health ministry staff, have been arrested for allegedly duping people of Rs 15 crore on the pretext of getting them work-related orders for transportation of Covid vaccines to different states, police said on Sunday.
Hermenn Sabherwal (43), Govind Tulsian (52), Diprana Tiwari (32), Trilok Singh (53) and Mrityunjoy Roy (44) were nabbed by the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police, they said.
Police said Singh is employed as a Multi Tasking Staff at the Health Ministry on a permanent basis while Tiwari is also an MTS but on a contract basis. “Roy was on deputation with Minister of Home Affairs from SSB and was a reception officer in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare at Nirman Bhawan,” a police statement said.
According to the police, a probe was initiated after several complaints were received from a person named Sunil Kaushik and others where the victims alleged that they had been duped of Rs 15 crore on the pretext of getting their work orders for transportation of Covid vaccines.
The police said all the complainants claimed that they were made to sit inside the conference room of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in order to execute the work order for the transportation of Covid vaccines, police said.
After a preliminary enquiry, the case was registered and the investigation was taken up by EOW. A total of six complainants came forward whereas the cheated amount comes out to be Rs 15 crore.
Ravindra Singh Yadav, Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) said the investigation revealed that the accused came in contact with the complainants and offered them the ministry’s work order. To gain the trust of the complainants, the accused also took the victims to the Union Health ministry located inside the Niman Bhavan premises, police said.
“The accused also impersonated themselves as officers of Ministry and obtained signatures of the complainants on forged work orders. In lieu of such forged work orders, they obtained Rs 15 crore from the complainants,” he said.