Due to the rise in COVID cases in the UK and other countries, entry into Maharashtra has been restricted by the state government without a mandatory Covid-19 negative certificate and in the absence of the same, the traveler has to undergo the mandatory quarantine of 14 days. Taking advantage of the situation the airport officials have started collecting Rs 4000/- from every passenger traveling without a Covid-19 negative certificate to skip the quarantine…
According to the reports, Mumbai Police cracked a quarantine scam at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) on Friday, wherein the flyers could avoid the necessary quarantine by paying an amount of Rs. 4,000 to the Airport officials.
The cops apprehended a 35-year-old sub engineer for collecting Rs. 4,000 per flyer to avoid the mandatory quarantine along with two of his associates in Mumbai’s Sahar.
Rs. 1.4 lakh in cash, 200 Saudi riyals, fake rubber stamps of home quarantine, letterheads with stamp and signatures of doctors of some top private hospitals which included four letterheads of Tata Memorial Hospital, three letterheads not Asian Heart Institute, and two of a doctor of Care Medical Centre were confiscated by the cops from the bag of Dinesh Gawande who was posted by BMC at the airport to check the flyers arriving from the US, Dubai, and Kuwait at P6 since 23 December 2020.
Police are investigating whether other officials are involved in this scam and who must have helped Gawande to get bribes and also the number of flyers he cleared with fake documents to date. If found guilty, he will be imprisoned for seven years as per a report in the Times of India.
A housekeeping staff member suspected Gawande when he pushed her aside when he barged into a toilet and left with a bag around 5:50 am. She lodged a complaint to CSIF and MIAL officials against Gawande.
The police have registered a few statements from some of the flyers who stated that Gawande took Rs. 4,000 from them who had arrived from Dubai and Kuwait.
According to the report, a police officer said, “Gawande admitted he was collecting bribes. His bank account will be checked. He shared the money with Sarang and Singh.”
Gawande also confessed that 41-year-old Ashraf Sarang and 32-year-old Vivek Singh helped him to make fake health certificates from the airport’s duty-free shop.
All three of them have been taken into custody till 19 January under IPC sections for violating prohibitory orders, cheating, forgery, counterfeiting a mark used by a public servant, and under the Epidemic and Disaster Act.
