Jabalpur, Apr 22 (PTI) Two doctors working in private hospitals and three others were arrested on Thursday by the Madhya Pradesh police special task force (STF) for allegedly black marketing key anti-viral drug Remdesivir, police said.

Remdesivir is being widely used in treating COVID-19 patients and its demand has skyrocketed following a surge in coronavirus cases in the country.

Two doctors and three others were arrested for black marketing ofRemdesivir, STF (Jabalpur) Superintendent of Police Neeraj Soni said.

He identified the arrested doctors as Jitendra Singh Thakur (26), working with Life Medicity Hospital, and Neeraj Sahu (26), employed with Ashish Hospital in the city.

The other three accused, Sudhir Soni (27), Rahul Vishwakarma (24) and Rakesh Malviya (31), work in Sanskardhani Hospital, the police officer said.

Four Remdesivir vials, six mobile phones, a four- wheeler and Rs 10,400 in cash were recovered from the accused persons, he said.

Thakur, through other accused persons, used to sell in the black market Remdesivir injections left by patients after recovering from the infection, he said.

Thakur used to hand over unused injections to Sahu, who would pass them on to Vishwakarma who later gave the vials to the other two accused for selling them in the black market, the police officer said.

The racket came to light when a policeman was sent as a decoy customer to purchase the injections from Sudhir Soni and Vishwakarma, he said.

The accused were booked under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 34 (common intention) and relevant provisions of the Essential Commodities Act and the Epidemic Diseases Act, the STF officer added.

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