'Sabrina blames husband’s conspiracy, police find conflict of interest'

JKG's Health Care chairman Sabrina Arif Chowdhury put on a three-day remand claimed that she is a victim of her husband’s conspiracy.

The court granted her remand in a case filed over COVID-19 certificate forgery after Tejgaon police produced Sabrina before the Dhaka metropolitan magistrate court on Monday morning.

JKG’s chief coordinator and Sabrian's husband Ariful Haque Chowdhury won several contracts of the health ministry using the identity and social connection of his physician wife Sabrina.

Inspector Hasanat Khondokar, who is investigating the case, told Prothom Alo that Sabrina claimed her innocence in the incident of providing fake COVID-19 test results.

But police think she cannot avoid the responsibility as a chairman of JKG.

Sabrina, also a cardiac surgeon at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, was arrested on Sunday.

Sources said JKG set up 44 booths in Dhaka and Narayanganj to collect samples from suspected coronavirus patients. Alongside sending the samples to government-designated labs, they also used to provide fake test reports.

The police sources said they seized the test reports provided from JKG. Those reports had the seal of the government approved organisation named Institute for Developing Science and Health Initiative and Health Services (ideSHi).

The police sent those test reports to ideSHi and found the reports fake.

JKG used to give COVID-19 negative reports to those with few or no symptoms, the police said.

Resorting to such forgery, JKG earned up to Tk 700,000 in a single day. The conflict started while distributing the money. Those who used to get a salary of Tk 30,000 started demanding more.

The police said, sharing of the illegally-earned money created a gap between Ariful and his wife Sabrina.

Ariful gave a cheque of Tk 500,000 to Sabrina, but it was bounced. Later, Sabrina sent a legal notice over the incident.

Refuting Sabrina’s claim that she had no idea about JKG’s fraudulence, police official told Prothom Alo that JKG got the DGHS approval to collect samples for free in the first week of April. After a few days, they started to charge people for test breaking the contract .

The Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) in writing warned JKG about it but they continued charging people.

Additional director general of DGHS Nasima Sultana told Prothom Alo that she verbally warned Ariful about the matter.

Nasima said she warned Ariful to stop the facilities JKG was getting from DGHS.

Defying the warning, Ariful threatened her by giving reference of high officials.