Cough syrup bottles, tramadol capsules seized

SOLAN: A large cache of spurious and illegally stocked intoxicants have been recovered from a godown in Sirmaur district during a joint raid conducted by the State Narcotic Crime Control Cell (SNCCC) and the Drug Control Administration (DCA) in the Purruwala area of Paonta Sahib.

Ambika Sharma
Tribune News Service
Solan, April 26

A large cache of spurious and illegally stocked intoxicants have been recovered from a godown in Sirmaur district during a joint raid conducted by the State Narcotic Crime Control Cell (SNCCC) and the Drug Control Administration (DCA) in the Purruwala area of Paonta Sahib.

The raid was conducted with the assistance of the local police. It began Thursday evening and continued throughout the day today.

At least 10,000 codeine cough syrup bottles, 47,000 tramadol capsules and various drugs manufactured for the Sikkim-unit of Glenmark and Sanofi were recovered. Twelve bottles of codeine were labelled. The seized drugs were tested in a lab to ascertain their composition.

“The godown was owned by Dinesh Kumar, an employee of Apple Field International, a pharmaceutical unit, and had been hired by the said unit for storage purpose. A large quantity of raw material and printing packing material bearing the firm’s name was also seized from the two-roomed godown, said state Drug Controller Navneet Marwaha.

A team of the DCA, headed by Marwaha and comprising two assistant drug controllers and two drug inspectors, conducted a thorough search of the godown and detected various violations of the Drug and Cosmetic Act.

He said since codeine was an opiate that fell under the controlled substance category, its quota was disbursed by the Gwalior-based Central Bureau of Narcotics. It would be inquired into as to how it had been secured by the manufacturer in such a large quantity. The seized drugs were used as intoxicants and fetched high returns.

Marwaha said appropriate action against Apple Field International would also be initiated for illegally manufacturing and stocking these drugs. A case under Section 18(c) of the Drug and Cosmetic Act for manufacturing drugs without licence and Section 18(a)(1) of the said Act for stocking spurious drugs for sale had been registered against the manufacturers.

The officials had raided the unit earlier also, but nothing incriminatory was found. The unit staff could not be traced, said police officials. DSP, SNCCC, Vikram Chauhan said the raid was conducted after receiving inputs about nefarious activity in the godown. A case under the Drug and Cosmetic Act and the NDPS Act had been registered against Rajiv Kumar, co-owner of the company, and godown owner Dinesh Kumar.