Pramesh S Jain. Yogesh K Porwar
Continuing investigations into the bed allotment scam,the Central Crime Branch (CCB),on Monday, arrested three persons including two staff members of private hospitals and a Arogya Mitra officer for their alleged involvement in the scam.
The accused has been identified as,Sudhir Umarani from Punya hospital in Basaveshwaranagar,Venkoba Rao from Sparsh Hospital RR Nagar and Dhashidhar Arogya Mitra officer were allegedly found blocking beds in the names of patients even after they were discharged.
They were not only blocking the beds meant for deserving covid patients alloted by the BBMP but also selling the same beds for monetary gain,a senior police officer said .
The CCB is further investigating to ascertain the involvement of others.
Meanwhile CCB officials,on Sunday,zeroed in on three hospitals which are suspected to have been involved in the bed allotment scam.
The CCB questioned hospital staff,Arogya mitras and ambulance incharge for further investigation.
So far,seven persons have been arrested in connection with the scam.
Meanwhile,four others accused to have links to the scam,namely Rohit Kumar,Nethravathy,Rihan, and Shashi Kumar,are in police custody since Friday.
The CCB probed several hospitals in the city along with 18 persons interrogated so far including doctors,staff of the war rooms,hospital staff and arogya mitras and Ambulance App incharges.
Meanwhile CCB officials formed eight special teams to analyse the data recovered from the zonal war rooms.
Sandeep Patil,Joint joint Commissioner of Police, said that the investigations continued as officials are gathering the data from all the war rooms and verifying to ascertain the allotments of beds to whom and by whom.
Eight teams were formed and each team is headed by an inspector to supervise the investigations and data analysis,Mr.Patil,said.
Further action on the concerned staff will be based on the information taken out from the data,he added .
Meanwhile the hospitals in which the accused have blocked the beds is also being investigated.
The special teams are questioning the hospital staff and verifying the details .
The custody of the four has been extended to question them in details about their network and involvement of others .
The accused Nethravathy and Rohith who were arrested earlier and later handed over to the CCB told the officials that they would take 10 percent commission on every booking and the rest of the money they would transfer it to the contacts in the war room who would run the show of blocking and unblocking.
The hunt for other touts involved in the scam are on he added.
