A medical technologist of Kushtia’s Mirpur Upazila Health Complex had been selling fake coronvirus certificate as ‘demand’ of the buyers without any test.
Making the certificate acceptable, he was using the format of PCR lab certificate of Kushtia Medical College Hospital. He was coming with these certificates by making a seal in his own name. He had been doing this heinous job for several months.
The matter came to light, after a team of Kushtia Detective Branch (DB) raided the Upazila Health complex on Wednesday afternoon and arrested him. The technologist was identified as Mahfuzur Rahman.
Police arrested him after seizing a computer hard disk and pen drive with fake certificates from his office room.
Kushtia Civil Surgeon HM Anwarul Islam has filed a case as plaintiff with Mirpur police station.
The civil surgeon said certificates, computer hard disks and pen drives were recovered from his computer.
DB Officer-in-Charge (OC) Aminul Islam said Mahfuzur had admitted to giving such a certificate during interrogation.
OC told that the man was giving such certificate not only to Kushtia people but also to many other districts. In most cases, he was issuing Corona negative credentials. He used to give this certificate especially in the cases where the government and non-government employees needed this certificate. He would take as much money as he wanted from each certificate.
OC said he used to charge around Tk 2,000 to Tk 25,000 per certificate. However, the police official told that police could not unearth how much number of certificates he has given so far.
Mirpur Upazila Health and Family Planning Officer Jasmine Akhter told that as per the rules, the samples that will be collected in the upazila every day will be sent to the PCR lab of Kushtia Medical College. The sample will be tested and announced from there.
Here the accused medical technologist was giving fake certificate as per the demand of the communicators whether the samples were collected or not.
He told that strict action would be taken against him for such incidents on a sensitive issue.
The District Civil Surgeon informed that the matter has been informed to the higher authorities. If instructions come from there, the next step will be taken.