Accused in Kumbh fake Covid testing case held
Sharat Pant, his wife Mallika were arrested from their Noida residence on Sunday
HARIDWAR: The main accused in the Mahakumbh fake Covid tests case, Sharat Pant and his wife Mallika Pant were arrested from their Noida residence late on Sunday. The couple, absconding for months, arrived at their home late on Sunday night.
The arrest, by the Special Investigation Team investigating the fraud comes six months after it registered a case in the matter.
The two are partners in Max Corporate Services, which had the contract for Covid-19 testing of pilgrims, tourists and local residents during the Mahakumbh held earlier this year.
According to deputy Inspector General of Police Yogendra Singh Rawat ,who also holds the charge of Senior Superintendent of Haridwar ,SIT and Special Operation Group (SOG), the police received vital information regarding location and movement of Sharad and Mallika Pant in Noida.
“On the intervening night of November 7 and November 8 both the accused had arrived at their residence B-56,Sector 48 in Noida to take some belongings but prior information led to them being nabbed by the investigating team. They have been arrested and the police is interrogating them for further revelations and details about other accomplices involved in the fake testing case,” Rawat said during a press conference in Haridwar on Monday afternoon.
The Mahakumbh fake Covid testing fraud surfaced at the Mahakumbh in June after a Faridkot resident complained to the authorities that he received a message to collect his Covid-19 report despite never having been tested. The complaint triggered a probe into nearly 100,000 tests conducted in Haridwar during the Kumbh.
On June 17, Haridwar police booked Max Corporate Services, and two private labs, Nalva Lab from Hissar and Lalchandani Lab from Delhi, in connection with the fake COVID testing case. On June 18, Haridwar police formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to assist the investigation.
The four- month Kumbh Mela was curtailed this year to one month (April 1-30) but devotees thronged Haridwar for months despite experts warning that saying the crowds could spark a surge in infections. Roughly 9.1 million pilgrims took the holy dip in the Ganga from January 14 to April 27, including at least six million people in April, coinciding with the second wave of the pandemic. The Mahakumbh coincided with a major spike in the COVID cases in Uttarakhand. The spike was blamed influx of millions of people from across the country to Haridwar, where testing remained low despite a direction from the Uttarakhand high court direction. Between April 1 and April 30, overall active cases in the state registered a spike of 2392 %.
SIT’s investigation officer Narendra Kathait said that the couple has been booked under IPC sections 188, 269, 270,420,467,468,471 and 120 (B) and relevant sections of Disaster Management Act.
This is the second arrest made by SIT in the case; in July, it arrested the owner of Delphia laboratory Ashish Vashisth.
Rawat said that with the arret of the Pants, SIT has made a major breakthrough in the case. The Mahakumbh is held every 12 years between Makar Sankranti, which usually falls on the second weekend of January, and Chaitra Poornima, which is celebrated in the last week of April.