The probe of fake vaccination drives conducted by a gang of 12 people at several places in the city, it has come to light that in one of the drives at Borivali's Mansi Stock and Shares Pvt Ltd, where 514 people were inoculated, the accused, Dr. Manish Tripathi had asked his students to administer a less dose of the vaccine. The students were instructed to administer 0.3ml of Covishield per beneficiary, when the government and authorities had made it mandatory to administer 0.5ml of vaccine per person.
The investigation into the fake vaccination drive revealed that Dr. Manish Tripathi had lured the students of KCEP nursing institutions with extra marks and asked them to administer the vaccines for practical purposes. "The trainee nurses have revealed that they were told to consider the vaccination drive set up af several places as practical knowledge for their course and were promised extra marks in the examination," said a senior police officer attached to Borivali police station, who is probing two cases of vaccination drives set up by the same accused gang.
The carrier of the vaccines, Mohd. Qareem Akbar Ali, has also identified the location from where he had transported the vaccines to the vaccination camp across the city. Qareem said that the vials were stored in the south wing of the Charkop based Shivam Hospital and the nursing students were instructed by Tripathi to give doses of 0.3ml instead of 0.5ml, to further misuse the remaining vaccines.
Police are yet to ascertain what did the accused do with the remaining vials of the vaccines and why were they not destroyed after the first use. Probe also revealed, as earlier stated by Vishwas Nangre Patil, Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order), that salines and empty vials were taken from Shivam Hospital to conduct the vaccination camps.
At present, Borivali Police have acquired the custody of mastermind Mahendra Singh, Sanjay Gupta and Qareem Akbar Ali in the fake vaccination drive at Aditya College of Design. Chandan, alias Lalit Singh and Nitin Mode, was taken in a similar drive conducted at Mansi Stocks and Shares Private Limited. Borivali Police already had custody of two more accused in the case --Shrikant Mane and Seema Ahuja.
