Police said that around 2,000 people were injected with fake Covid-19 vaccines in Mumbai and
another 500 in Kolkata. Police in Mumbai said that around 2,000 people who thought they were being vaccinated were in fact injected with a saline solution. Ten people had been arrested, including two doctors from a private hospital, in connection with the vaccine scam. Media reports said that the shots were given from nine different locations.
Police in Kolkata, meanwhile, arrested a man posing as a civil servant with a master's degree in genetics who reportedly organised as many as eight spurious vaccination camps. Police said at least 250 disabled and transgender people were injected at one site while the total number of people injected with the fake jabs rose to 500 across the city. Atin Ghosh , an official in Kolkata said that the seized vials were falsely labelled as containing the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, branded in India as Covishield.
“It was found that the Covishield label was stuck over another label, that of Amikacin Sulphate
500 mg, an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections of the urinary tract, bones, brain, lungs
and blood among others,” Ghosh said. The scam came to light after an actress and politician, Mimi Chakraborty, who received a shot at one of the camps, became suspicious and alerted police.
Police seized fake ID cards from the suspect, one of an information ministry official and another
as a municipal commissioner. His car sported Kolkata government stickers. Debashis Barui, a Kolkata health official, said that many of those who had been injected were “panicking” about the possible side effects. “We didn't think that this could happen when the world is battling the pandemic,” said Debjit Majumdar, who also received the fake jab.
