Iqbal Singh Chahal, the Commissioner of the
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), left the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office on Monday after spending hours being questioned. The ED called Chahal in to be questioned in a case involving the allegedly fraudulent COVID centre scam. Kirit Somaiya, a politician in the Bharatiya Janata Party, claimed there were anomalies in the BMC-established COVID-19 centres. Chahal had been contacted by the ED to record his statement in the case.
As soon as Chahal entered the ED office at Ballad Estate in south Mumbai at around 11.40 am, he was interrogated for almost three hours. After Somaiya complained to the Azad Maidan Police Station, an FIR was filed against a hospital management business. The business allegedly filed falsified documents and obtained the contract to build a Jumbo Covid Centers.
According to the FIR, the partners of the hospital management company allegedly presented a fictitious partnership deed to the BMC in June 2020 and acquired contracts to open Covid care centres in Mumbai and Pune in NSEL, Worli, Mulund, and Dahisar without any prior medical experience. According to the complaint, the company sent the BMC invoices for these centres and received 38 crores, and many people died as a result of the alleged carelessness of these personnel. According to the FIR, after verification it was discovered that the employees and doctors at these Covid care centres lacked adequate credentials and failed to treat patients appropriately, causing them to suffer.
