Chandigarh: 6 arrested for Remdesivir black marketing amid shortage during COVID spike

A group of black marketeers of Remdesivir has been arrested by Chandigarh police. The police have arrested 6 persons including the director of a medicine company. During the course of the investigation, it has come to fore that the gang members were natives of Kerala, Delhi and MP and operating from a hotel in Chandigarh.

The accused have been identified as Abhishek PV,  Susheel Kumar native of south Delhi, Parbhat Tyagi from Bhopal, Philip Jacob and KP Francis natives of Kerala, Gaurav Chawla medicine company director.

During the course of the investigation, it has been learnt that five members of this gang have recently shifted their base to Chandigarh for the sale of Remdesivir in an illegal manner. And taking the benefit of shortage of medicine they were charging a hefty amount for selling the medicine.

A senior police official said that they have involved a company director based in Baddi through which the sale of medicine was executed. He added that this gang has a huge network and five of them were operating from Chandigarh.

An SIT has been constituted to unearth the scam as this was just the tip of the iceberg. All were dealing in the sale/purchase of Remdesivir medicine, without any permit or license.

After investigating the matter, it came to the fore that Abhishek PV and Susheel Kumar, Parbhat Tyagi, KP Francis and Philip Jacob were making a fraud/illegal deal of medicine without any permit or license. The police have registered the case under section 420, 120B IPC and Section 7 of EC Act 1955 and Section 27 of Drugs and cosmetics act 1940.  

Meanwhile, a team of police has carried out a raid at a medicine manufacturer plant at Baddi and 3000 injections of Remdesivir which they were planning to infuse in the local market without any prior permission or approval were seized in the presence of a Local Drug Inspector.

Glaring irregularities were found in the physical verification of stock pointing towards the diversion of medicine towards the local market after the ban on export by the Government.