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.