A thief who had fled with a bag containing over 1,700 doses of Covid-19 vaccine on Thursday in Haryana's Jind Civil Hospital returned the packets stolen with an apology note. “Sorry, I was not aware this packet contained Coronavirus Vaccine,” said the Hindi note left by the thief.
The incident happened on Thursday afternoon when the thief fled away with 1,710 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine from the Civil Hospital in Jind.
According to Jitendra Khatkar, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Jind, an unidentified man handed the vaccine doses to an elderly person sitting at a tea stall outside the civil lines police station in the district and told him it was the station Munshi's lunch.
"We are trying to nab the thief as soon as possible. We are looking at the CCTV footage for evidence. Stealing vaccine was not the motive of thieves, it was something else. If stealing the vaccine was their purpose, they would not have returned it," the DSP said.
According to a media report, there were several other vaccines in the store which were not stolen by the thief. A medical officer said that other valuables like laptop, cash… were also lying in the storeroom but the thief did not take those articles away. The thief stole 1270 Covishield vaccines and 440 of Covaxin vaccines. The police suspect the thief may have stolen the vaccines mistaking them to be the anti-viral drug Remdesivir.
Meanwhile, India reported 3,14,835 cases in the last 24 hours, the highest single day spike since the onset of the pandemic early last year. Starting May 1, India is expanding its COVID-19 vaccination drive to include those above 18. The registration for this category will open on April 28.
