Odisha Health Dept’s Crackdown on Spurious Drug Racket Continues: 5 More Arrested from Varanasi

Bhubaneswar: Five more persons have been arrested from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh in the ongoing enforcement drive against spurious drugs by the Odisha Health and Family Welfare Department.

The Health Department has constituted a Special Task Force on Drug Enforcement comprising of one Senior Administrative officer and selected officers of drugs control administration.

In a major crackdown on spurious drug racket and after rigorous work of 9 days jointly by STF Odisha and STF UP, five accused persons including the kingpin were arrested on Tuesday in Varanasi.

The arrested persons are Chandra Sekhar Singh (Kingpin), Gourab Sharma, Retesh Kumar Jaiswal, Subham Jaiswal and Abhishek Singh. They have been taken into remand by Odisha Police.

The team along with local Drugs Inspector, City, Amit Kumar Bansal, and Sanjay Dutt, Drugs Inspector, Rural seized the suspected spurious drugs of cost about Rs.25 lakh, seized relevant hard disk with computer and also traced transaction of more than Rs 1 crore spurious drugs. In this same link, previously on 2nd march 2023 based on report from Commissioner cum Secretary, H & FW Odisha to her counterpart Aparna U, Uttar Pradesh, the STF Team of UP had also seized Rs 7.3 crore spurious drugs.

On January 19, the team arrested one Sunil Agrawal at Bargarh and filed FIR against Amit Kumar Sarwagi of Jharsuguda who was found absconded. The drugs so detected as spurious included some highly circulated brands in the market such as Antibiotics: IT-Mac 200, Clavam 625 and few others .

These drugs were found supplied from three firms of Varanasi, UP

1. M/s Baby Enterprises, D48/71, Misir Pokhra Luxa Road, Ps- Luxa Varanasi, State- Uttar Pradesh, Pin- 221010, Proprietor: Subham Jaiswal

2. M/s JP Medicals, Swarved Mandir, Po-Umharhan, Ps- Chaubeypur, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, Pin- 221112- Proprietor Jyoti Jyoti, D/o- Sri Ramesh Lal

3. M/s. Guru Kripa Medical, At- CK65/193, Po- Bari Piyari Nichibagh , Ps-Chowk , dist-Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, Pin- 221001- Proprietor: Abhisek Singh.

For investigation, a team led by Dr Sudarsan Biswal, ADC Bhubaneswar II Circle with Sashmita Dehury, Drugs Inspector, Jharsuguda Range and Miss Sunita Nag, Drugs Inspector, Bargarh Range in a confidential operation proceeded to Varanasi on 17.4.2023. The Special Task Force, Uttar Pradesh provided all necessary assistance, the Health Department said.