■ Staff Reporter :
THE Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) exposed
the racket of substandard medicine in a Government-run hospital in Maharashtra in March
last year and had seized a stock
of 21,600 tablets of
Ciprofloxacin (Recip-500) from
government’s storehouse at
Indira Gandhi Government
Medical College and Hospital
(IGGMC&H). Investigation into
the case revealed that the substandard drugs worth crores of
rupees were manufactured in
Dehradun in Uttarakhand.
The
cops are working on leads to
find the persons behind manufacturing of the drug.
On Sunday, the Kalmeshwar
Police arrested a man from
Saharanpur in connection with
the fake medicine racket. The
accused was identified as
Raman Vijayakumar Taneja, a
resident of Janta Road,
Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
The drug was purchased by
the District Civil Surgeonthrough the contract processlast year. Three persons werebooked by Kalmeshwar Policein this case -- identified asprime accusedVijay ShailendraChoudhary, a resident of
Thane; Hemant DhondibaMule; a resident of Latur, andMihir Trivedi, a resident of
Bhiwandi. Recently, the policearrested Choudhary.
The investigation beganwhen the FDA officials picked up samples of Recip -500
tablets containing
Ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic,
from Rural Hospital at
Kalmeshwar in March 2023.
The samples were sent to the
Government Laboratory for
testing and results were
received in December 2023.
The results of the medicines
showed that the tablets contained no medicine value.
Investigation also revealed that
the drug was manufactured by a bogus
company - Refined
Pharma, Gujarat.
“The company does
not exist anywhere
in India,” the official
said.
As a result, the
FDA conducted a
raid at a government
store at IGGMC and
seized a stock of
21,600 tablets. A case under
Sections 420, 468, 471, 276 and
34 of Indian Penal
Code was registered at
Kalmeshwar police
station.
Under the guidance of SP Dr Harssh
Poddar, the arrest was
made by ASP and
Saoner SDPO Anil
Mhaske (IPS), API
Ashishsingh Thakur,
PSI Dattatrey Kolte,
and staff including
Satish Rathod, Manish Sonone,
Nitesh Pusam and others.