The Enforcement Directorate has conducted searches at the office and residential premises of several private laboratories in various cities in connection with the fake COVID testing scam during Kumbh Mela at Haridwar in Uttarakhand.

According to an official release, the searches were conducted at the premises linked to Novus Path Labs, DNA Labs, Max Corporate Services, Dr Lal Chandani Labs and Nalwa Labs in Dehradun, Haridwar, Delhi, Noida and Hisar.

The ED has alleged that these labs made fake entries for the COVID testing and raised bills in order to earn illegal financial gains due to which the positivity rate was shown much lesser than the actual rate.

“These laboratories hardly carried out any COVID test but made fake entries for the testing and raised bogus bills in order to earn illegal financial gains. Due to the false-negative testing, the positivity rate of Haridwar at that time was shown at 0.18 per cent against the actual 5.3 per cent,” the ED said.