KolkataPolice have arrested a man allegedly for running a fake vaccination in Kasbaarea in the southern fringes of the city based on a complaint by TrinamoolCongress MP Mimi Chakraborty.
Theactor-turned-politician found the camp suspicious when she received no officialconfirmation after taking the vaccine from the camp on Wednesday evening and solodged a complaint with the police.
Policeimmediately arrested one Debanjan Dev in south Kolkata, who allegedly pretendedto be an IAS officer and supervised thousands of vaccinations.
Thefake vaccination camp is now turning into a bigger investigation amid questionsabout whether the jabs given to hundreds of people were genuine.
Chakrabortysaid that he was approached by the man requesting her to become the chief guestin the camp and she took the Covid shot to encourage people to vaccinatethemselves and help check the spread of the virus. Around 250 people werevaccinated at the camp.
"Itook Covishield vaccine at the camp to motivate people for taking jabs. But Inever received a confirmation message from CoWIN," she said.
Shesaid she noticed that no Aadhaar card details were taken for people to registerwith CoWIN, so no one received any message after the shot.
Thepolice are now investigating the shots given to people and whether they werevaccines past their expiry date. Kolkata Police and KMC who are jointlyinvestigating the fake vaccine case have come to know that Dev had organisedanother camp in Amherst Street city college where 70 people, including theprofessors and their families were vaccinated.
Policehave also come to know that this Kasba New Market camp was running for the last12 days and more than 1,000 people were vaccinated.
Ateam of doctors and healthcare workers have reached Kasba New Market where thevaccination camp was organised and they will go to every family to see whetherthe vaccine had any side effects.
"Thepeople told us they were given Covishield and Sputnik V but we cannotunderstand from where they got the vials. The KMC didn't make anallotment," a KMC official said.
"Wehave sent the vials for clinical tests and are waiting for the report. We arenot sure what has been injected into the people. If we have not allotted anyvial then from where did he get the vials. These are questions that need to beanswered," the official added.
InterrogatingDev, police found out that he posed as Joint Commissioner of Kolkata MunicipalCorporation and moved with an armed bodyguard.
"Wehave come to know that he had taken interviews of some people promising jobs inKMC. We are trying to find whether he was the only man in this racket or thereare some people involved," a senior police officer of Kolkata DetectiveDepartment said.