A trilogy for disaster: A fake IAS officer, A fake vaccine and real side-effects

Students are facing drowsiness and  health issues like low blood pressure and fever after more than a week of getting fake vaccinations in their college camp arranged by an imposter called Debanjan Dev. This man claimed to be an IAS officer and joint commissioner of Kolkata Municipal Corporation. 

Debanjan arranged fake vaccination camps, two of which have been exposed, one at City College and another at his office in Kasba where actress and TMC MP Mimi Chakraborty got a fake jab and exposed the fake IAS officer.

Chakraborty being a TMC MP and actress helped turn the spotlight on the issue and was immediately treated for the ill effects of the fake jab. But several others who were affected during these fake camps weren’t that lucky. 

The Voices tracked down several of those who were administered this fake vaccine and are now suffering due to it. Approximately 72 members including students, teaching and non-teaching staffs got the fake jab in City college organised by Debanjan Deb on June 18.

“I still feel drowsy all the time. The same thing is happening with my friends too. Some students are facing low blood pressure problems they were advised to take ORS in a health camp a week after the fake jab”, said Shreya a student of City college. “I was not prepared for the vaccination that day. I told them just a month ago I had COVID but Debanjan told me I could take it. According to them I was given Sputnik V. I don’t know what was in the jab they have given me but I still  feel drowsy all the time”, she added. 

Arkonil Das another student of the same college explained to The Voices, “All of us are really scared about what jab was given. For days we felt drowsy all the time”. Most students faced similar problems after the fake vaccination camp.  Indrajit Shaw, an alumni of the college and an employee at Debanjan Deb’s fake KMC office in Kasba. “Indrajit also was not aware of Debanjan’s fake story. Debanjan visited our college through Indrajit and meet our principal with the proposal of vaccination and distributed thousands of masks and sanitizers among us for the Yaas relief camp that we organised. We never realised the person who came in a government car could be an imposter. He also gave a letter on a fake KMC letter-head to our Principal for this vaccination camp”, said Arkonil. 

Subho another student of City College said, “He visited our college with a team of 10-12 members in three cars with black glasses. No doctor was there; a person from his team was giving the jab. One of our student tried to take a selfie of his vaccination but was slapped by Debanjan, and beaten by his workers with sticks badly. We opposed him for this, he threatened us that he would complain against us at Lalbazar police station. How could we behave in such a way with an IAS officer, so we remained silent. He didn’t allow us to take any sort of photograph of the camp. We invited some media but he refused to allow them to take pictures”.

Arnab Chakraborty a young journalist of a local Bengali newspaper told The Voices, “ I took the permission of the college principal but  I was not allowed to take any kind of photographs of the event by the KMC officer Debanjan and was told to take a posed picture of an old lady whose vaccination was already done. I opposed but they were persistent. However, I still managed to take some photographs of the camp that day”.

Kolkata High Court slapped Debanjan with an attempt to murder case. According to a police officer who was quoted as saying to The Print, “Debanjan prepared for such fake camps around three to four months ago. He wrote a letter to a Serum Institute official for sending Covishield. He created a fake email account as deputymanager@kmcgov.org” said the officer.

According to the latest information, the Kolkata Police have sent letters to the Serum Institute and Google, alerting about Debanjan’s fake proposal letter of vaccination and the fake email address he used for this scam.   

Kolkata Police had also sent the fake vaccines for examination to  NIECED to investigate the constituents of the vial. The report said, it was Amikacin Sulphate inside the fake Covishield vial and Steroid injection inside the fake Sputnik V vial. These drugs are said to have life threatening side effects according to doctors.

An infuriated West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee reacted to the incident at a recent press conference said “Those who do such things, I consider them neither human, nor inhuman. They should be called big terrorists…They are more dangerous than terrorists… I am at a loss for words in trying to condemn this…”

Edited by: Raghujit S. Randhawa