MP Mimi Chakraborty gets duped by “fake” officer running COVID-vaccine camp in Kolkata

Trinamool Congress MP Mimi Chakraborty got vaccinated for COVID-19 at a camp in Kolkata’s Kasba area, that was organised by a person who claimed to be an IAS officer on behalf of Kolkata Municipal Corporation. When she didn’t receive a notification over phone for registering her first dose of vaccination of Covishield, she felt something amiss and contacted the police.

The person who had contacted the Trinamool MP, Debanjan Deb (who claimed to be joint commissioner of Kolkata Municipal Corporation and an IAS officer) had said he was organising a vaccination camp especially for third gender individuals and sought her participation to raise awareness. The actor-turned-MP agreed and got vaccinated herself. However, she said she felt something amiss when she didn’t receive an SMS on her phone, and was told the registration would take a few hours. However, later she was told the registration would take a few days. On hearing this, she suspected that this could be a case of fraud and contacted the police.

The police stopped the camp – scheduled to run for 10 days – immediately. None of the people who had been vaccinated in this camp had received registration certificates. Mimi Chakroborty said that she was now wondering what was used in the injection administered on her, and whether at all it was Covishield as claimed. Police arrested the person who was running the camp, and seized vehicles and fake ID cards. An officer said that the samples used in the camp were being tested for verification.