Doc held for selling govt medicines illegally

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 1

A BAMS doctor has been arrested for stacking and selling medicines meant for free government supply at her private (commercial) establishment here yesterday.

A huge stock of medicines, meant to be provided for free at government hospitals and not allowed to be sold by private practitioners, were seized from the private hospital being run at Buttran village in Bhogpur.

Among the medicines recovered from the hospital include 1,675 tablets, seven syringes with catheters, 31 injections, including tramadol, and several allopathic medicines.

Bearing the words ‘Punjab Government Supply’ and ‘Not to Be Sold’ on their labels, these medicines were found illegally stacked up at Neelam Sharma Memorial Multi-specialty Hospital in Bhogpur. Revelations regarding the same were made after teams of the Drug Department, Narcotics Control Bureau and the STF raided the hospital premises on Tuesday. The police also reached the spot and an FIR under Sections 22, 61 and 85 of the NDPS Act and 420 of the IPC was lodged against the doctor.

Neelam Sharma is a BAMS doctor registered with the Board of Unani and Ayurvedic System of Medicine.

The raid was carried out by Anupama Kalia, Drug Inspector, Jalandhar 2, Dinesh Kumar, Senior Assistant, JP Singh, Intelligence Officer, Narcotics Control Bureau, and Jarnail Singh, ASI, STF.

At least 25 types of medicines were seized from the spot. During the raid, Dr Ritu Sharma said paramedical staff from neighbouring dispensaries arranged the drugs for them.

The SHO, Bhogpur police station, was also called to the spot.

Interestingly, Dr. Ritu’s husband is a pharmacist at a local government dispensary.

Sources in the Health Department said black marketing of government medicines was being done by many government doctors who were discreetly selling off government drugs to private hospitals.

The SHO said: “The doctor has been arrested for selling government medicines. We are looking into further leads in the case. So far, no other person’s name has surfaced in the case.”

Karun Sachdev, Zonal Licensing Authority, Jalandhar, said: “A registered BAMS practitioner has been found selling government medicines, which are supposed to be disbursed for free at government hospitals. It is a grave violation. Hence, we immediately got an FIR registered against the doctor and at present, she is in custody. The supply has been coming from another government establishment. The police are looking into the matter and hopefully, there will be more leads in the case soon.”

Notably, the Drug Department had also formerly raided shops in Amritsar after a trail to an investigation in defence medicines being illegally sold in Maharashtra led to Amritsar. The probe into that case is currently on with the CBI.

In two other raids held in the district by the Drug Department on Wednesday, eight kinds of habit-forming drugs were seized from Bhogal Medicine Centre, Kishanpura Chowk, and seven types of drugs, mostly habit-forming drugs, were recovered from Simrat Medicos, Kishanpura Chowk.