Calcutta, Oct. 26: Police detectives today surprised Ghanshyam Sarda, brother of kit scam accused Govind Sarda, at the airport, arresting him as he tried to catch an early morning flight out of town.

The police said Ghanshyam was managing director of Monozyme India between June 2005 and July 2006 when the faulty blood-test kits were supplied, and had full knowledge of the company’s day-to-day functioning.

The 45-year-old had been on the run since elder brother Govind’s arrest, sneaking in and out of the city on short trips from Delhi.

Plainclothes detectives, lying in wait for him, spotted a smartly dressed Ghanshyam about to walk into the security zone around 5.40 am, boarding pass in hand for a Jet Airways flight to Delhi.

Ghanshyam, too, spotted and recognised one of the officers and quickly made a U-turn, heading briskly towards the exit. But seeing the detectives still coming after him, he gave up.

The businessman had turned up early at the airport and bought an economy-class ticket using his credit card and giving his name as “G. Shyam”, the police said.

“That he bought the ticket in a different name reveals his culpability. He should be able to throw some light on the pricing of the kits and how they were branded and later distributed,” a senior officer said.

Ghanshyam has been charged with cheating, forgery, activity leading to an epidemic and violating the Drug and Cosmetics Act. The police said four more arrests were likely, including that of the youngest Sarda brother, Jagdish, also in hiding.

Monozyme’s kits, supplied past their expiry date, are feared to have failed to detect HIV, Hepatitis B or C in blood-bank samples, possibly infecting thousands in Bengal.

“As a key functionary of the company, Ghanshyam was aware of everything… (including) the decisions regarding kit distribution,” said city detective chief Gyanwant Singh.

The use-by dates on the cartons and the kit boxes inside didn’t match; and dates were either absent or smudged on the pouches. Yet doctors and lab technicians had apparently failed to notice them.

Singh said the police would try and find out if some health department staff had been “facilitators”.

The police will send the entire lot of 1.10 lakh kits seized from hospitals, blood banks and clinics to the National Institute of Biology, New Delhi, for a report on their condition.

A large number of kits were seized today from three private diagnostic centres in Krishnagar, Malda and Cooch Behar, confirming fears that private clinics, too, had bought faulty kits from Monozyme.