The Pimpri-Chinchwad police has arrested three persons for allegedy issuing fake RT-PCR Covid-19 tests for employees of industrial units around Pune. According to police, the suspects had given fake RT-PCR results to 62 employees of a company, randomly assigning Covid-19 positive reports to three people and negative reports to 59 people without getting the samples tested. The current 'Break the Chain' rules in force in the state mandate RT-PCR testing of employees coming to the workplace. Pimpri-Chinchwad police officials said a private company in the manufacturing sector, which has plants in Mahalunge and Bhamboli, had approached a certain Baliram Londhe (24), a private pathology laboratory operator in Chikhali, in the second week of April. Londhe told the company's managers that he would get the samples tested at another laboratory and give the test result certificates accordingly, police said. A few days later, he handed over test results of 62 employees whose samples were taken, police said. The tests showed that three employees had tested positive for Covid-19 and 59 tested negative, police said. The three who tested positive began undertaking treatment, police said. A few days later, the private company suspected fraud in the matter and approached police. A team from Mahalunge police chowky launched a probe and arrested Londhe and two accomplices, Birudev Waghmode (22) and Suraj Shelke (21), who had helped him in forging the test results, police said. Inspector Dadhrath Waghmode said, "These suspects randomly gave Covid-19 negative and positive reports to company employees. So, people who were not actually infected had to take medicines and those who may have been positive were not identified as such, resulting in possible spread of infection. We are now probing if these suspects have cheated more people in this manner and if they have more accomplices."
