Daijiworld Media Network – Mangaluru (DV)

Mangaluru, June 4: A senior pharmacist at Employees State Insurance Dispensary at Panambur-Baikampady, was caught red-handed by Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials while allegedly accepting a bribe on Saturday June 4. 

The pharmacist caught by the officials is identified as Vishnumurthy Bhat.

It is said that Prashanth Kumar had filed a complaint with the ACB.

The complainant was suffering from a health problem. His wife Swathi is working in a bakery. She was possessing ESI. As per the suggestion from a doctor of a private hospital, the complainant used to procure medicines from the ESI dispensary and used to get treated in a private hospital.

If the prescribed medicine was not available at the ESI dispensary, the complainant had to procure it from private medical stores. Later, the bills of the medicines were to be submitted to the ESI dispensary, and the bill amount would get sanctioned to the bank account of the complainant's wife.

To sanctions bills, Panambur ESI dispensary senior pharmacist had demanded Rs 2,000 bribe from the complainant. On Saturday afternoon, when the accused was accepting the bribe, ACB officials caught him red-handed. The officials are inquiring the accused.

Under the directions of ACB Western Range superintendent of police C A Simon, DySP KC Prakash, police inspectors Sham Sunder and Gururaj, staff Hariprasad, Radhakrishna DA, Radhakrishna K, Umesh, Vaishali, Ganganna, Adarsh, Rakesh, Bharath and Mohan Salian took part in the operation.