A district court in Bangladesh has sentenced eight health officials to eleven years of rigorous imprisonment for issuing fake Covid-19 test reports. In 2020, authorities suspected them of issuing thousands of fake reports, declaring people Covid positive without any proper procedures. 

Sabrina Chowdhury, the chairman of the JKG Health Care, a private hospital in Bangladesh, and seven of her colleagues were accused of issuing as many as 27,000 Covid reports without following proper procedures. Most of these reports later turned out to be false.  

Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Tofazzal Hossain found the charges correct and sentenced all the eight accused to eleven years in rigorous imprisonment. 

Soon after the issue came to light in June 2020 after a man lodged a complaint against the hospital, Bangladesh’s Directorate-General of Health Services (DGHS) cancelled the licence of the hospital. 

Dhaka Metropolitan Police later arrested Sabrina Chaudhary and her husband Ariful Chowdhary and two others for their involvement in fake certificates and reports. Significantly, the hospital had also organized a free Covid test campaign at that time. 

(SAM)