The Rapid Action Battalion has arrested Tariq Shibli, the public relations officer of Dhaka’s Regent Hospital which has been shut down for allegedly issuing fake COVID-19 test reports and other irregularities.
He was apprehended from the capital’s Nakhalpara early Thursday, according to Ashik Billah, director of the RAB’s legal and media wing.
The elite police unit obtained important information from Tariq about the scam as law enforcers continue the hunt for the main perpetrator, the hospital’s chairman Mohammad Shahed, he said.
On July 6, the RAB received complaints that the hospital had been treating patients in an unclean environment while preparing fake coronavirus test reports.
A RAB mobile court subsequently launched raids on the hospital’s headquarters and a branch in Uttara.
The authorities recovered some unauthorised test kits and false test reports during raids. Following the shutdown of the hospital’s headquarters and a branch in Uttara, a RAB mobile court raided Regent Hospital’s Mirpur branch on Wednesday and sealed it off.
As many as 14 allegations of providing false COVID-19 test reports have been brought against the private hospital so far.
The reports were made using seals and pads of a government institution, but the RAB authorities said that those were not verified by RT-PCR tests at any state-own institution.
The RAB later initiated a case against Shahed and 16 others at Uttara West Police Station.
The case alleges that the hospital authorities duped nearly 6,000 patients out of Tk 20.1 million by issuing fake coronavirus tests reports even though it was supposed to provide free treatment for COVID-19. They later forwarded a bill of Tk 19.6 million to the health directorate
Source: bdnews24.com
