Ramesh Taurani

Almost three days after Tips head honcho Ramesh Taurani opened up about falling prey to a vaccination racket in Mumbai, it appears that the net of the scam has been cast wide. About 150 employees of Matchbox Pictures, a production house led by Sanjay Routray, were inoculated along with the Tips employees at a private vaccination drive conducted on May 29 and June 3 in Andheri. A fortnight since, as the employees have yet to receive their vaccination certificates, Matchbox Pictures filed a police complaint, following which the Versova police have registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Sanjay Gupta and Rajesh Pandey of SP Events that organised the programme.

The studio’s spokesperson told mid-day, “Some members of our team and support staff got vaccinated under the drive organised jointly with our production partner, Tips Industries. Our topmost concern currently is to know whether the vaccines given were genuine or fake so that appropriate action can be taken to re-vaccinate them, if required, at the earliest. We are looking forward to clarity in this regard from the investigating authorities.” 

An employee of the studio, on condition of anonymity, said the first sign was the lack of post-jab side-effects, across the board. “There have been no side-effects so far. It’s possible that they injected us with saline water. The certificates should reflect on the CoWIN website immediately after the jab. When that didn’t happen, we were alarmed. Now, we’ll get our jabs by booking slots through the website directly; there are enough slots available in the city.”

Days after the vaccination scam in Kandivali’s Hiranandani Heritage society came to light, Taurani approached the Mumbai Police on June 17, noting that his 356 employees had not been given their certificate 10 days into their jab. In a statement issued since, the producer said, “When my office people contacted Mr Rajesh Pandey, he said [the certificates] will come by Saturday [June 12]. We paid Rs 1200/- per dose plus GST. Apart from money, we are worried [whether the dose] given to us is genuine Covishield or saline water.”

A Tips employee says that he suspected something fishy within days of the inoculation. “I didn’t have fever or body pain post the jab. A day later, we realised that none of us had any side-effects, which was rather strange. When we asked for the vaccination certificate, we were told we will receive it from Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital by June 12.”

While Gupta was arrested last week in the Kandivali vaccine fraud case, Pandey, believed to be a former employee of Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, is reportedly absconding. 

mid-day mailed a query to S P Events, which remained unanswered.

On reaching out to the Versova police station, a police officer said, “Only 10 people of Matchbox Pictures have got a certificate of vaccination after so many days. These were given from the Nanavati Hospital. The gang misused the Co-WIN portal IDs and passwords to issue these certificates. Whether the vaccine was genuine or not, is being investigated.  The day after conducting the drive at Matchbox,  they conducted a similar drive  at the Kandivali  society.”