Parmesh jain
The West Division police of Upparpet police busted a fake RT-PCR certificate racket and arrested a 35-year-old travel agent who was selling fake covid negative certificates which are mandatory for the people to travel to other states as per the travel guidelines issued by the state government .
The accused has been identified as, Sampathlal,35,Resident of Manavarthipet.
DCP West,Dr Sanjeev M Patil,told Media persons on Wednesday our upparpet police inspector received a credible information that one person is selling fake RT-PCR certificate near chickpet BBMP grounds and is charging around 3000-4000 for each from people to travel to other states.
Based on a tip off,a team of police led by Inspector CB Shivaswamy and swung into action and rushed to the spot and kept a close watch on the suspect and the team after getting confirmation that he is indulged in selling fake RT-PCR Covid negative certificate racket.
The police team apprehended him and took him to station for further questioning during questioning he said that he works as a travel agent in manavarthipet area the team escorted him to his shop and conducted a search and during search the team recovered a letter head of a private Diagnostics centre and three covid negative certificates duly signed by the doctors in the name of three persons were recovered.
During investigation the accused confessed the crime and it was found that the accused was working as a travel agent to get railway and air tickets for his customers.
After travelling restrictions he resorted to creating fake certificates by creating fake letter heads of private Diagnostics centre in the name of fake doctors and duly signed to make extra money from his clients.
Investigations revealed that the accused was charging RS.3000 to Rs 4000 per each certificate.
Inspector and team grilled him a detailed investigation by the team the accused spilled the beans and it has revealed that he has managed to create several certificates using which people have gone to Rajasthan and West Bengal where a Covid negative certificate is mandatory.
We have seized his phone and gathered the data of the people who got the certificates from him. We will be alerting the Rajasthan and West Bengal counterparts to identify them and take further action.
Sampath Lal has been taken into custody to ascertain if there is a possible role of doctor or a diagnostic centre.
The Upparpet Police have booked the accused under Disaster management act and also under fraud,forgery,unlawful and negligent act to spread infection and also under cheating.
The police are also on the lookout for Mukesh Paramar,associate of Sampath Lal who is presently on the run and will be nabbed soon and further investigation is on.
The racket was catering to people who wanted negative reports to fulfil conditions for travel and work,but did not want to take a test or wait for the report.Several such rackets have been busted across the country in the past two months.We are checking if there are more such rackets operating in the city.
Finally Bengaluru Police Commissioner,Kamal Pant has appreciated Addl CP West,Soumendhu Mukherjee,DCP West,Dr Sanjeev M Patil,ACP,P Ravikumar,PI,CB Shivaswamy,PSI, Umesh,Narayan,and crime staff as,Mahadev,Mahadevaswamy and other staff who has successfully nabbed the travel agent for creating fake RT-PCR Covid certificate and a suitable reward will be given to the team for the exemplary and commendable job done by them he added.
