Case: A magistrate court in Kurla last week granted bail to two persons Juber Shaikh and Alfez Khan, both 19, who were arrested for allegedly selling fake COVID-19 vaccination certificates to people.
Advocate Sofiya Shaikh
As per the complaint against them at Kurla police station, they had sold the final vaccination certificate for Rs. 2,000 to the complainant. The complainant was caught at the airport by officials as the batch number of both the doses was identical and thus made a complaint against the accused u/s 420,467,471 and other related offenses. After police custody of 8 days, the youths had claimed bail in a plea through Advocate Sofiya Shaikh that they shall be released on bail as they were neither the author of the certificates nor they were personally responsible for creating such certificate but solely on the instructions and desire of the complainant. Whereas no inquiry youths had claimed bail in a plea through Advocate Sofiya Shaikh that they shall be released on bail as they were neither the author of the certificates nor they were personally responsible for creating such certificate but solely on the instruction and desire of the complainant. Whereas no inquiry was made against the complaint which had asked the accused to create such certificate without taking the dose and the complainant would have enjoyed using the fake final certificate if the batch numbers would not have been identical. The court said in its order that it would not be proper to keep the young accused behind the bars for an indefinite period and that the police would take its own time to file the charge sheet and shall be released on bail.
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After the above case came to the notice of Advocate Sofiya Shaikh, she felt it was important to tell the public about it and spread awareness about such a racket as this racket is life-threatening and is playing with the life of people and all the preventive measures that the government is taking is going in vain due to this.
She stated:
The Racket: Today, people have made a huge business of creating fake double dose, fake vaccination certificates. Instead of taking the doses, with the fake final vaccination certificates, these people are traveling freely around the vaccinated people. Once these fake certificates are issued in one’s name, he/she cannot get vaccinated as the fake certificate is linked with Aadhar Card and gets uploaded on the official Covid-19 government website (Arogya Setu) and upon scanning with your Aadhar Card Number, shows you as fully vaccinated. Since the government has put a restriction on travel without the double dose vaccination certificate, such as on airplanes, trains, buses, malls, theatres, and other public places. Also, private spaces like corporates, offices, clinics, and even your homes are not safe anymore due to such people. People are creating such certificates with the help of some people that are a part of our government system itself without knowing the risk that they are putting on themselves and the world. This seems to be one of the major reasons for the relapse of Covid-19.
She further adds, “Currently, there is no machinery that can identify such fake certificates; and the lockdown and curfew imposed by the government are not going to be a long-lasting solution to the spread of Covid-19. The government needs to take action to stop such a deadly racket by spreading awareness about and doing something that will help in identifying such fake certificates. Otherwise, this will be a never-ending situation of the virus in India.
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