Court Correspondent :
Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge KM Imrul Kayes on Monday denied JKG Health Care chairperson Sabrina Arif Chowhury bail in a case filed over COVID-19 certificate forgery.
Detective Branch of the police on August 5 filed a charge sheet against Sabrina, her husband and JKG chief executive officer Ariful Islam Chowhury and six others in the case.
The court framed the charge against the eight accused on August 20.
The remaining six accused are – JKG executive officer Shafiqul Islam, graphic designer Humayun Kabir, his wife Tanzina Patwary, Ariful’s sister Jebunnesa Rima and employees Sayeed Chowdhury and Biplob Das.
According to the charges, JKG falsified at least 1,985 COVID-19 certificates and issued the certificates through a fake email account of the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research.
The charges said that JKG was assigned by the Directorate General of Health Services to collect swabs for coronavirus test, but they forged samples, results and even provided results with fake email accounts without having any test, in many cases.
On June 23, Kamal Hossain, who was given a fake COVID-19 report from JKG, filed the case against Ariful and several unnamed people with the Tejgaon police station.
Police on the same day arrested Humayun, Tanzina and Ariful.
With their information and confessions of some arrested, Sabrina, also a suspended cardiac surgeon at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, was arrested on July 12.
During the investigation, detectives have found the involvement of some health ministry and DGHS employees in the scam.
