Tested on way to fair, never received report, says Kumbh pilgrim

A 60-year-old contractor, whose phone number appeared on 56 separate Covid tests during the Mahakumbh in April, said that only four people in his group gave swab samples, underlining yet another example of alleged fake tests during the holy event.

Kamal Patel’s mobile phone number was mentioned in the FIR filed by Haridwar’s chief medical officer (CMO) Shambhu Kumar Jha, the first official police complaint in the case involving allegedly 100,000 fake Covid-19 tests.

Patel, an Indore-based civil contractor, said he travelled to Haridwar with 55 other pilgrims on April 8. At the border of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh – roughly 50 km from the Kumbh site in Haridwar – members from a testing camp stopped their bus and took four samples.

At the time, a negative report or testing was mandatory for devotees to visit the Kumbh. “At the border, they chose four of us to collect swabs from our noses and mouth,” said Patel.

The swab collectors only took down his number, Patel said. “I did not think too much of it since I was excited about the festival,” he added.

The group stayed at Kumbh till April 13 but neither was anyone tested again nor did they receive any results, he claimed. “During the pilgrimage, none of the other three people who were tested with me got to know anything about their results.”

In early June, when the allegations surfaced, Patel said he started receiving calls from Uttarakhand health department officials. “I got to know there was some fraud because of which they all wanted to speak to me. But I am just happy none of us in fell ill during the mela,” he said.

Rajesh Shah, a member of the special investigation team (SIT) constituted to look into the allegations, said Patel’s case was among those being probed. “An irregularity in which a single phone number was mentioned against multiple tests has come to light. It was used against 56 different test samples. This is among several numbers being traced and contacted by us,” said Shah who is also the station house officer (SHO) of Haridwar (City) police station.

Allegations of fake testing surfaced last week after a Faridkot resident complained to the authorities that he received a message for collecting his Covid report despite never having been tested. The complaint triggered a probe that unearthed roughly 100,000 fake rapid antigen tests.

Real-time data checking through the Indian Council of Medical Research portal revealed fake entries on basis of mobile numbers and addresses of people who were never tested. When contacted, many of these people said they didn’t even visit Haridwar in April.

Last Thursday, two labs and a private agency were booked for negligence, spreading disease, cheating and criminal conspiracy, and under sections of the 2005 disaster management act and the 1897 epidemic diseases act.

Delhi-based Lalchandani Labs and Hisar-based Nalwa Labs both denied the allegations. Noida-based Max Corporate Services, which was the service provider, has approached the Uttarakhand high court seeking protection from police action