In a disturbing development, 30-year-old lab technician working at a Government hospital at Badnera in Amravati district of eastern Maharashtra has been arrested for allegedly molesting and raping a woman on the false pretext of taking ‘vaginal sample’ for conducting a Covid-19 test.

Identifying the arrested lab technician as one Alpesh Deshmukh, police officer investigating the case Punjab Wanjari said on Thursday that the incident took place on Tuesday at the Trauma Care Testing Lab in the Badnera Government hospital in Amravati district when 23-year-old woman complainant-victim had gone for a Covid-19 test.

The victim woman, an employee at a local mall, had been referred to the hospital along with 20 others after the “contact” of a colleague who had tested positive for Covid-19.

After the test, the accused technician reportedly told the victim woman that she had tested positive and that she had to undergo a urinal test.

The victim woman asked if there were female technicians to help her out to undergo the second test. However, the technician allowed her to bring a female companion if she so wanted. Deshmukh later allegedly took a vaginal swab sample of the victim woman and informed her later that she had tested negative.

Finding Deshmukh’s conduct suspicious, the victim woman confided in her brother, who spoke to his doctor-friend whether vaginal swab samples were needed Covid-19 tests. Subsequently, the victim woman lodged a complaint against the lab technician with the Badnera police. The police booked Deshmukh under sections 354 ( outraging modesty) and 376 ( rape) and arrested him later.

Deshmukh was on Thursday produced before a local court which remanded him in police custody till July 31.