Day after pregabalin drug seizure, medical store owner arrested

A day after the drug wing of the district Health Department seized a huge quantity of habit-forming drugs from a stockist in Shanker Market here on Saturday, the police have arrested the proprietor of Ganesh Pharma located in Katra Sher Singh area and registered an FIR against him under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.

Nevertheless, he was later released on bail. It was a joint operation conducted by the drug wing along with senior police officers.

Yesterday, Kulzinder Singh, zonal licensing authority of the Drug Department, and Bableen Kaur, Drug Control Officer, had raided the unlicensed godown situated on the 4th floor of Shanker Market following a tip-off. The godown allegedly belonged to Ganesh Sharma and owned by Amit Kumar, a resident of Hathi Gate area.

During the raid, they confiscated 16 types of drugs, including pregabalin and analgesic tablets, worth Rs 69 lakh from the godown. The drug wing also collected six samples for the test and analysis.

“Drug wing officials and the cops confiscated 1,48,800 capsules of pregabalin and 1,51,200 tablets of banned analgesic tablets of different trade names from the spot,” said Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar, adding that the accused could not produce any sale and purchase records of the medicines.

The Health Department sealed the medical store run by Amit Kumar and further investigations are underway to establish his forward and backward linkages.

The Police Commissioner said this was a massive recovery and he had instructed the senior police officers to keep a check on such illegal storages.