Pramesh Jain

The North Division police of Subramanyanagar police and JC Nagar police in a major crackdown arrested six persons since Wednesday including a lecturer of a nursing college and staff of many private hospitals while they were selling Remdesivir injections vials in Black.

The accused has been identified as,Janardan,Medical Representative,JP Nagar,Deepak,Medical Representative, nagawara,Lokesh,Receptionist Hospital, Yelahanka,Dinesh M,27,lecturer in little flower college of nursing and his associate Shankar,42,a lab technician from Gayathri diagnostic centre situated in 6th block Nagarabhavi,and Johny H,34,HR manager of St. Theresa hospital.

Senior officer told media persons,a major drive against Blackmarketing of Remdesivir vials was carried out in our North Division in the leadership of DCP,North,Dharmendra Kumar Meena,team headed by Subramanyanagar police and JC Nagar police have cracked down on Black Marketing of Remdesivir vials.

Based on tip off recieved by Subramanyanagar police inspector, Sanjeev Gowda HB,that two men selling Remdesivir injection in public.

A team of police from Subramanyanagar on wednesday raided a place near private hospital junction in Rajajinagar 1st block and caught Dinesh M,27, who works as lecturer in little flower college of nursing and his associate Shankar,42,a lab technician from Gayathri diagnostic centre situated in 6th block Nagarabhavi and recovered 12 remdesivir injection vials,a bike two mobile phones cash Rs 7,500 from them. 

During investigation the accused told the police that he was sourcing the vials from the lab technician of the hospital identified as Anand and sharing the profits.

The duo confessed that they have sourced the injections from their contacts identified as Chethan,a lab technician from Ashraya hospital  and Pawan,boys hostel mess incharge of a little flower college of nursing.Chethan and Pawan are currently on the run.

Following the leads,the police also arrested Johny H,34,HR manager of St.Theresa hospital and recovered three Remdesivir vials,a car,two mobile phones and cash Rs 5,000 from him.

Similarly on Thursday, the JC Nagar police in separate incidents arrested three men selling Remdesivir in black to the public .

Based on the information the JC Nagar police raided a place near a private hospital on JC Nagar main road and arrested,Janardhan NS,34, a medical representative,Deepak,34,delivery boy of a medical store and Lokesh,28,a receptionist at a private hospital .

The police recovered 10 vials of Remdesivir, three bikes and seven mobile phones and cash Rs 16,000 has been seized from them.

We have taken the accused into custody for further investigations and efforts are to secure the arrest of others who are involved in the black marketing and presently on the run,Dharmendra Kumar Meena,DCP, North Division,said .

Meanwhile the CCB officials also arrested 4 accused in separate incidents and recovered 12 Remdesivir injections from them on Thursday.

DG-IGP Praveen Sood,tweeted telling,90 persons have been arrested and 38 cases booked for black marketing Remdesivir injection or packing fake remdesivir.Our drive will continue against those trying to profiteer in this tough situation.Well done.Keep the pressure on such unscrupulous activities he said.

The Karnataka police have been on their toes to curb black marketing of the drug since Mid-April with several such cases reported from Bengaluru, Mysuru and other cities.

Commissioner of police,Kamal Pant said in his tweets,@BlrCityPolice’s crackdown on black-marketing rackets continues unabated!.

@DCPNorthBCP has arrested 6 persons involved in black-marketing of #Remdesivir antiviral drug. Each vial was being sold at 8X times than the govt fixed rates. Further investigation is underway.

Anyone involved in these rackets will not be spared. The public is requested to share the info about any such attempt.Confidentiality will be maintained he said by tweeting.

Meanwhile,Bengaluru DCP,North,Dharmendera Kumar Meena,expressed confidence that the force would find the source of diversion of the drug soon.We will reach the source of diversion of this drug and take action against whoever is involved.

People are requested to reach out to the police to give any information they have on the same. We will act swiftly while maintaining confidentiality, he said.

A case has been registered under various sections of the Drugs Control Act and Indian Penal Code section 420 (cheating),against the accused in Subramanyanagar and JC Nagar police station and further investigation is on.

Finally,DG&IGP, Praveen Sood,has appreciated Bengaluru Police Commissioner,Kamal Pant,Addl CP West,Soumendhu Mukherjee,Joint CP Crime, Sandeep Patil,DCP North,Dharmendra Kumar Meena,DCP Crime-1, KP Ravikumar,ACP,Malleswaram Sub-Division,KS Venkatesh Naidu,ACP,JC Nagar Sub-Division,Smt.Reena Suvarna,PIs,as,Sanjeev Gowda HB,D R Nagaraj,PSIs,as,Latha N,Vinod J,and other crime staff who has done a tremendous and meticulous investigation led them to nab 6 people and successfully seized 25 Remdesivir vials anti-viral drug from them and a suitable reward will be given to the team he added.

Courtesy:The Cognate

By Shaik Zakeer Hussain

In a startling revelation, BJP MLA Satish Reddy, who a couple of days ago was seen in a video asking if BBMP was a Hajj Bhavan or a Madrasa to recruit Muslims, and made allegations against officials for running a racket of allocating hospital beds to COVID patients in exchange for bribes is now accused of allotting beds to his supporters in the same case.

Satish Reddy, the BJP legislator from Bommanahalli reportedly put his agents in the BBMP war room, who in turn were booking beds for his supporters. Reddy and his agents are alleged to have issued threats to officials in the war room to prioritise his supporters over other

The paper reported that the beds were also being sold for monetary exchange to distressed patients.

On Tuesday, Reddy accompanied by Bangalore South MP Tejasvi Surya, Basavanagudi MLA Ravi Subramanya, and Chickpet MLA Uday Garudachar held a press conference accused city municipal officials of accepting bribes to allot hospital beds. They alleged that a “nexus of BBMP officials and frontline health workers” were creating artificial scarcity and that beds were being booked under the name of asymptomatic patients who were in home isolation.

The BJP legislators also picked up on Muslims working in the BBMP COVID war room and took objections to them working there. In the video of the incident that has since gone viral, they were seen barging into a BBMP COVID war room and asking officers present if BBMP was a Hajj Bhavan or a Madrasa to recruit Muslims.https://www.youtube.com/embed/cWS2ZwsfUfM?feature=oembed

The South zone war room has 205 designates telecallers, of which only 17 were Muslims. In the video, Surya is seen asking the BBMP official what process was followed to recruit the volunteers in the COVID war room, and read out a list of 17 people, who all happened to be Muslims. Surya, Reddy, and the other BJP leaders were seen asking officials to remove the Muslim employees from the war room.

The Cognate got in touch with some of the sacked employees, who said that they were not given any reason why they were removed from their jobs.

BENGALURU: After 24 patients lost their lives in Chamarajanagara owing to oxygen shortage among other reasons, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa held an emergency meeting with oxygen manufacturers and suppliers in Bengaluru on Monday. As per the Chief Minister’s own estimate, the state requires approximately1,471 tonnes of oxygen per day given the spike in the number of Covid-19 cases. In his meeting, Yediyurappa said a ‘green corridor’ for oxygen transportation will come up in the state to ensure timely supply to hospitals. 

The state can manufacture 812 tonnes of oxygen per day, including from industrial sources. With many industries coming forward to convert industrial oxygen for medical purposes, the amount produced in the state has increased slightly. The state also gets supply from the Centre. The daily allocation was 300 metric tonnes till the last week of April. It went up to 800 metric tonnes after Yediyurappa, in the Chief Ministers’ meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demanded an increase in the allocation of oxygen to the state along with the drug Remdesivir. The state is also expected to receive four tankers of liquid oxygen from Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. 

At the meeting, Yediyurappa asked officials to ensure minimal wastage of oxygen supplied by the Centre. “We have to reduce the time taken to refill empty oxygen tankers,” the CM said. Taking a cue from the Union Health Minister’s idea to explore the feasibility of converting existing nitrogen plants to produce oxygen, the state government is looking to convert nitrogen and argon tankers available for supplying oxygen instead. Given the shortage of manpower, the state is also looking to hire LPG tanker drivers to ferry oxygen tankers in emergencies.

An appeal has been made to manufacturers to coordinate with officials directly to ensure smooth supply of oxygen to hospitals. Meanwhile, the clinical expert committee on Covid-19 in the state has provided guidelines for minimising the wastage of oxygen. These guidelines also lay down the responsibility of the health team regarding the judicial use and the responsibility of the hospital administrators in monitoring and auditing oxygen use. 

BENGALURU: As frenetic investigations and corrective measures got under way a day after the alleged bed allocation scam in Bengaluru was exposed – reportedly by Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya and other BJP leaders – a senior official, known for his efforts in Covid management, expressed grief over social media posts linking him to the incident. He has also raised objections over the issue being “communalised”, with 16 people belonging to a minority community coming under the under the scanner.

Karnataka Lokayukta Justice P Vishwanatha Shetty initiated suo motu proceedings into the alleged scam and directed the Lokayukta police to conduct an independent probe and submit a report within three weeks.The city police too registered two criminal cases in Jayanagar police station, arresting nine people, including two doctors. Four others are being questioned.

Preliminary investigations have revealed the involvement of staff members of private hospitals too. The accused have been charged with breach of trust, cheating and extortion under provisions of the Indian Penal Code, besides provisions of the Disaster Management Act. Both the cases have now been transferred to the CCB for further investigation.

The BBMP Chief Commissioner, Gaurav Gupta, said the issue is being parallely investigated by the South zone special commissioner. The BBMP Joint Commissioner (Solid Waste Management) and in-charge of Covid Care Centres in Bengaluru, Sarfaraz Khan, expressed pain over being dragged into the alleged bed booking scam, with social media posts demanding that he be held “accountable” although he is not involved with the Covid war room. 

BENGALURU: Karnataka reached yet another scary Covid peak since the onset of the pandemic by recording 50,112 new cases in a day, breaching the 17-lakh mark in the total number of cases at 17,41,046. The State’s positivity rate for the day was 32.38 per cent. The State is also not far behind from reaching the second spot in the country in the highest number of cases, as Kerala in the second spot has 17,43,933. But Karnataka is at the second spot in the number of active cases at 4,87,288 and has an active case ratio of 27.5 per cent.

The State recorded its highest single day Covid deaths at 346. Most of them were from Bengaluru Urban at 161. Deaths were also reported from Vijayapura, Ballari, Hassan, Uttar Kannada, Mysuru, Kolar, Mandya, Tumakuru, Kalaburagi, Dharwad, Ramanagar, Gadag, Ballari and Raichur. The total number of Covid deaths is now 16,884. The case fatality rate stands at 1 per cent.On the brighter side, the State reported the highest discharges at 26,841, taking the total to 12,36,854. The State’s recovery ratio stands at 76.1 per cent which is lower than in many districts.

Bengaluru Urban recorded 23,106 new cases and the total number of positives are now 8,63,380. Total Covid deaths are at 7,006. Across the State, 86 are positive with the UK Strain, six with South African strain and 62 with the double mutant B.1.617.The State crossed the one-crore mark by inoculating 1,00,72,795 people.Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar tweeted, “K’taka has received 1,05,49,970 doses from Centre & State Govt has procured 3 lakh doses. Vaccine is our biggest weapon to defeat pandemic & Govt is leaving no stone unturned to vaccinate everyone at the earliest.”