NEW DELHI: Three men, including a staff of a government hospital in Faridabad, have been arrested for allegedly black-marketing Tocilizumab injections, used in the treatment of COVID patients, police said on Saturday.
The accused have been identified as Utkrisht Gupta (22), a resident of Vaishali in Ghaziabad, Manish (32), a resident of Laxmi Nagar, and Raghubir (27), a resident of Faridabad, they said.
On Friday, police received information that a man was selling Tocilizumab injection at an exorbitant price.
A client posing as a buyer then called the man who agreed to sell one vial of the injection at Rs 2.90 lakh, a senior police officer said.
The man asked the customer to come to Laxmi Nagar to get the vial, police said.
"Police laid a trap at Laxmi Nagar and nabbed Gupta on Friday night. One vial of Tocilizumab injection and one mobile phone was recovered from his possession," Deputy Commissioner of Police (southeast) R P Meena said.
Police also searched Gupta's residence in Sakarpur and recovered another vial of the injection. Gupta disclosed that he had received the vial from Manish, the DCP said.
Thereafter, Manish was also apprehended from Laxmi Nagar.
Manish told the police that he had got the vial from Raghuvir who is staff at ESI Hospital in Faridabad, Meena said.
A trap was then laid at the hospital and when Raghubir came to deliver another vial of Tocilizumab injection to Manish at Rs 1.60 lakh, he was arrested, he said.
He used to steal the vials from the hospital and sell them to Manish, they said.
Manish used to supply those injections to Gupta who further sold them in the black market, police said, adding three vials of Tocilizumab injections, one motorcycle and one scooter were recovered from his possession.