BHUBANESWAR: In a joint exercise, the special task forces of Odisha and Uttar Pradesh have busted one of the biggest inter-state rackets thriving on manufacturing and sale of fake medicines. Acting on a specific information shared by the Odisha STF, a team of UP drugs officials has arrested one Ashok Kumar, a resident of Bulandshahr under Sikandrabad police limits, in this connection. The team has also seized spurious medicines worth Rs 7.35 crore and cash of Rs 4 lakh from him. Health officials said, the raids have unearthed one of the biggest spurious drug rackets in near past. Based on the inputs provided by the state Health department to the UP government, the STF raided a house under Sigra police station and arrested Ashok on Wednesday.
A senior health official said another godown under Lahartara police station in Varanasi was raided following the confession of the accused trader and huge quantity of spurious drugs was seized. “The spurious drugs that were seized from Bargarh and Jharsuguda districts by the Odisha STF last year were found to be stocked in the godown. The UP STF has seized the drugs,” he said. Earlier, the special drugs enforcement squad that had probed the procurement of spurious drugs seized from Bargarh and Jharsuguda districts had found links to an inter-state racket. The Odisha firms had procured the drugs from three Varanasi based traders. The state government had constituted an inter-state investigating team comprising three officials from the drugs control administration and police officials in mid-February and deputed them to UP for carrying out the i n v e s t i g a t i o n .
Health secretary Shalini Pandit had also urged UP’s principal secretary of Health Aparna U to instruct her officials to cooperate with the Odisha team in unearthing the racket. “We hope to get more information on the racket as the details on the three Varanasibased traders are being verified. The STF of UP has already been alerted about the traders. More raids will be conducted as per the information obtained from the arrested trader,” the health official added. The state police has so far arrested six persons, including three distributors, one retailer and two medicine representatives in connection with the fake drug trade.