Fake drugs seized again from a warehouse in Odisha’s Cuttack, owner arrested

Following the searches, four cartons of fake anti-biotics and anti-diarrhoeal drugs worth over Rs 2 lakh were recovered.

Kasturi Swain Published On : Feb 28, 2023 at 10:34 AM

Cuttack: In what seems to be no respite from the rampant fake drugs racket, police in another crackdown recovered counterfeit medicines worth lakhs from a pharmaceutical godown and arrested the distributor in Cuttack district of Odisha on Monday. The accused proprietor Bijay Agarwal was nabbed after a joint team of Drugs Control squad and Purighat police raided the warehouse named ‘Sri Distributors’ near Town Hall road in Choudhury Bazaar area of the city. Following the searches, four cartons of fake anti-biotics and anti-diarrhoeal drugs worth over Rs 2 lakh were recovered.

As per official sources, a special task force of the Drugs Control Directorate and Purighat police received special tip-off about the counterfeit drugs trade from the area as part of their ongoing investigation on the fake medicine racket in the district. On receiving the special intelligence, a team led by Assistant Drigs Controller Dharmadeb Puhan, Inspectors Tusarkant Panigrahi and Haripriya Mallik and Purighat IIC Jatindra Sethy raided the warehouse and came across fake Ofloxacin and Ornidazole tables for stomach-related ailments under the name of reputed firm Medley Pharmaceuticals. The inspecting authorities got in touch with the company officials and learnt that the medicines were counterfeit.

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It also came to the fore that accused distributor was procuring the drugs from Lucknow, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi and later distributing those in various parts of the city and State. “The raid continued till late in the night. The accused has been arrested and fake drugs worth over Rs 2 lakh have been seized. Further investigation is underway,” police informed.

Earlier in September, spurious blood pressure medicines ‘Telma 40’ and Telma AM were seized in Cuttack and seven persons had been arrested in this connection from the city as well as Gaya in Bihar. Fake

Clavam 625 capsules had also been seized in Bhubaneswar and Jharsuguda, triggering panic and concern among people over the sale of fake drugs in the State.