Six individuals were arrested in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh for allegedly selling Remdesivir injections in the  black market. The police arrested them from the streets of Lucknow and recovered almost 128 vials of injections which were stolen by the group from various locations of Uttar Pradesh.

From the past two weeks, the Uttar Pradesh Police have reportedly arrested 25 people who were responsible for selling Remdesivir vials. A total of 628 vials, 185 Oxygen cylinders and around 8-lakh rupees were confiscated from these individuals. These arrests come at a time when the state of UP toils from an increased number of COVID cases and faces severe shortage of essentials like Remdesivir and Oxygen cylinders.

One of the culprits out of the six was held in Naka Hindola area, and a massive 116 vials were seized from him, stated UP police. The police also stated that they had got constant information about the illegal trade of Remdesivir in Lucknow and acted upon it.

Four culprits were arrested from Charbagh Metro station. Their names  are Ram Sagar, Anshu Gupta, Amandeep Madan and Ankur Vaish all of them hailing from Lucknow. Amandeep is a contractor in a hospital in Lucknow  while Ram Sagar works as a contractor for St. George’s Medical University, the Police stated. Officials also added that the both of them  were caught with cash of  Rs 1.94 lakh.

The culprits used codewords like "roti" and "lunchbox" for referring to Remdesivir, stated one of the UP officials.