Twist in Bengaluru bed-for-bribe scam

The bed-for-bribe scam took another turn with a middleman linked to the personal assistant of a BJP MLA allegedly having played a major role in blocking beds. The man had accompanied Bengaluru South MP Surya Tejasvi during a raid on the BBMP South Zone war room.

According to sources, the middleman reportedly had free, unregulated access to the war room, and was involved in the bed-blocking scam ‘exposed’ by the MP. Police have not been able to arrest or question him as he is hospitalised for Covid-19.

“Many outsiders had unhindered access to the war room and the bed allocation system operators,” the Indian Express quoted sources. The scam was a bid to profit from the demand-supply mismatch in hospital beds and the lack of an organised system.

Apart from the middleman, the role of doctors, hospitals, Arogya Mitras and BBMP (civic body) officials is also being closely probed.

Following the ‘expose’ by Surya Tejasvi recently, the police arrested 4 people linked to the Covid South Zone war room.

Police also collected CCTV footage of the war rooms to ascertain the presence of unauthorised persons. “The pressure from MLAs, MPs, IAS, IPS and other officials for beds is immense,” said the head of medical services at a Covid hospital.

Bengaluru continues to face a bed shortage, with over 20,000 daily cases being recorded for nearly 2 weeks.

Meanwhile, after MP’s ‘expose’ smacked of communal overtones as he read out names of 16 officials allegedly involved in the scam — all of them Muslims — a hashtag has been trending on Twitter, reminding the people the city is for all.” Called NammooraEllaruNammavaru (everybody in the city ours), the hashtag campaign was started by an online group ‘Bengaluru for Love’ and picked up Twitter users.