Court reserves order on bail plea of four suspects

A sessions court on Friday reserved an order on the bail applications of four of half a dozen people standing trial on charges of selling stolen Covid-19 vaccines to the public.

The additional district and sessions judge South-X, Shahid Ali Memon, fixed August 9 to pronounce his decision.

Of the plaintiffs, retired major Amanullah Sultan and Muhammad Ali are in jail in judicial custody, while Tahira Bano and Waqas are on interim bail. Besides them, one suspect, Abdul Samad, is in police custody on physical remand, while one Muhammad Zeeshan is in judicial custody.

According to the prosecution, the suspects colluded to steal Pfizer’s vaccines from government vaccination centres and then sell it to the public. It added that the racket was unearthed in a sting operation by health authorities and police.

The prosecution said Sultan owned a healthcare company, which provided Pfizer vaccines to the public at a price of Rs15,000 per dose. He was taken into custody after his employee, Ali, was arrested along with a box of syringes, vials and specimen collection swabs as well as empty vaccination cards of the Sindh Health Department.

Later, police implicated Zeeshan, Samad, Bano and Waqas in the case for providing Sultan’s company with the Pfizer vaccines after stealing them from a government vaccination centre in the District East. Bano and Waqas were granted bail before arrest against a surety of RThe FIR was registered on a complaint of District South drug inspector Ghulam Ali that he had reliable information about a company involved in stealing Pfizer vaccines from the government and selling them to the public.

He contacted Ali and agreed to purchase a Pfizer vaccine from him in a meeting at a restaurant on July 25 in Saddar where he along with Covid-19 focal person Dr Suhail Raza Sher and Dr Dilawar Jiskani and police nabbed the suspect.

The case has been registered under sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code, and section 30 of the Drug Act at the Preedy police station.