7 held for medicine theft

NEW DELHI: Crime Branch has arrested a pharmacist from the Ganga Ram Hospital and six others for stealing drugs from the hospital and CGHS and selling them in the market.
The arrested have been identified as Rajender Chauhan, who is a pharmacist-cum-store keeper at Ganga Ram Hospital, Vivek Singh alias Vicky (26), Vijay Ahuja, Atul Jain, Sachin Kumar, Hardeep Singh and Satish Kathuria.
The police also recovered medicines worth Rs 30 lakh from their possession.
"Rajender, who was employed at Ganga Ram for 5 years, used to manipulate the supply of medicines for the patients. As a result they had to pay more for the inflated bills," said a police source on condition of anonymity.
Delhi Police was probing the CGHS medicine scam since July this year when it arrested four persons while their raids resulted in the recovery of medicines worth lakhs.
The police first arrested Vivek on December 6, who told them that he procured medicines from Hardeep, who in turn sold them to three different chemists at Bhagirath Place. "We raided the shops next day and recovered a large quantity of medicines meant for CGHS," said DCP (crime) Ashok Chand.
New Delhi: The Crime Branch has arrested a pharmacist of Sir Ganga Ram hospital and six other persons including four chemists who were involved in an organised racket of siphoning off medicines from CGHS and also from Ganga Ram hospital and selling it in the open market. The cops have recovered medicines stolen from CGHS and Ganga Ram worth about Rs 30 lakh from their possession. Officials said medicines bungled from Ganga Ram hospital were being provided by one Rajender Chauhan, who reportedly has been stealing Ganga Ram's medicines for almost one year. The source of medicines meant for CGHS (Central Government Health Scheme) is yet to be traced. Police officials said "Rajender Chauhan, who is a Ganga Ram pharmacist cum store keeper for five years, used to manipulate the supply of medicines sent for the patients, which directly affected the pockets of hundreds of patients as they had to pay extra for extra medicines appearing in their bills".
Delhi Police was probing the CGHS medicines scam since July this year when it arrested four persons and raided a chemist shop and godown and recovered medicines worth lakhs.
In fresh arrests, the Crime Branch team first arrested one Vivek Singh alias Vicky (26) on December 6, who disclosed that he procured medicines from Hardeep Singh alias Sherry who further sold it to three different chemist shops at Bhagirath Place. "We raided the chemist shops next day and recovered a large quantity of medicines meant for CGHS supply. The chemists had made efforts to erase the 'Govt-supply- not for sale' stamps from the medicines," said DCP Crime Ashok Chand.
Later, Hardeep Singh was arrested and medicines of Ganga Ram hospital were recovered from his home. He used to sell medicines to a chemist Satish Kathuria, in Bhagirath Place. Singh also revealed he received medicines from Rajender Chauhan. Rajender was arrested then. Few other chemists - Vijay Ahuja, Atul Jain and, Sachin Kumar were also arrested.
Explaining the fraud in CGHS scheme, additional DCP Crime Branch, Joy Tirkey said, "The accused pharmacists would use indented prescriptions by doctors and buy the costly medicines using the government funds. They would then sell them to middlemen keeping a 35 % cut. Next, the middlemen sold these medicines to medical shop agents after keeping another 15% cut. The final medicine is sold at 15% less than the market value to attract customers".
ENDS