Shahed Karim alias Mohammad Shahed, who has been arrested on charge of scamming patients with fake Covid-19 results, has told a Dhaka court that he tested positive for Covid-19 and suffered for one and a half months.
During his remand hearing at the court on Thursday, he claimed that when no private hospital came forward to treat Covid-19 patients, Regent Hospital was the first one to become a Covid-19-dedicated hospital.
He broke down in tears while speaking at the court.
His lawyer Md Nazmul Hossain prayed to the court not to place his client on remand because he was ill, and requested to pass an order to question him at the jail gate if needed.
“It was not his fault. Regent’s former managing director Mizanur Rahman used to issue the certificates using fake pads. He collected samples from suspected Covid-19 patients from their homes,” the lawyer told the court.
Earlier in the hearing, he filed a bail petition before the court on Shahed’s behalf as well as a remand rejection prayer.
Shahed seemed relaxed when the police detectives produced him before the court, donning a helmet and a bullet-proof jacket.
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However, when the hearing began, Shahed seemed to be collapsing on the dock, and was given water by police.
After a while, he told the court that he wanted to say something. The court replied that he could talk after the lawyers were finished. He started sobbing then.
The court placed Shahed on a 10-day remand for his alleged involvement in providing fake Covid-19 results and embezzling money from patients.
The court also placed Masud Parvez, the managing director of the hospital, on a 10-day remand, and Tariqul Islam alias Tareque Shibli, a close associate of Shahed, on a 7-day remand.
Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Jasim passed the order on Thursday after the Detective Branch (DB) sought a 10-day remand for the trio.
What Shahed said
After the lawyers were done, the court asked Shahed if he wanted to say something.
Shahed said that the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) ignored his request to renew Regent Hospital’s license.
“Even after depositing the licensing fee to the bank the license was still not renewed,” he said.
“I have been suffering from Covid-19 for one and a half months and my father died suffering from the virus.”
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“They [law enforcers] have sealed off my head office but it has no relation to the alleged crimes. I have a law firm which was also sealed off. They have sealed off all of my offices,” he said.
On Wednesday, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested an armed Shahed on the bank of Labangaboti canal in Komarpur village under Satkhira’s Debhata upazila around 5am, as he was trying to flee across the border to India.
Shahed was absconding since RAB raided the Uttara and Mirpur branches of the hospital. He has 59 cases against him and has been wandering around under the nose of police for a long time.
On July 6, RAB raided the Uttara and Mirpur branches of the Regent Hospital on complaints that the hospital was issuing fake Covid-19 certificates, as well as charging exorbitant fees for Covid-19 testing and treatment of patients.
RAB also found evidence of at least 6,000 fake Covid-19 test certificates during the raid.
The next day, RAB filed a case against 17 people, including Shahed, with Uttara West police station. Later, ten other people were arrested in the incident.
