The menace of counterfeit medicines continues to haunt the Millennium City of Cuttack with Purighat police recovering fake drugs from a pharmaceutical distributor on Monday.
The duplicate medicines have reportedly been recovered from Sri Distributors located at Town Hall Road under Purighat police limits in the city.
After the recovery of the counterfeit drugs, the police detained the proprietor of the drug distribution firm, identified Bijay Agarwal.
Speaking about the fake drugs, the President of Cuttack Chemists Association said, "Some fake medicines were unknowingly procured till September 6, 2022. However, all the retailers were already told to get rid of those medicines from their stock and to inform the same to the drugs department."
The raid was jointly conducted by the Drugs Control department and Purighat police. Counterfeit medicines worth Rs 2 lakh were seized during the raid.
As per the preliminary inquiry, the drugs were used for the treatment of stomach ailment. The distributor reportedly procured the fake drugs from other states and sold them in the city.
Cuttack Zone 6, ACP, Amarendra Panda said, "This particular consignment of fake medicines was procured from Delhi, Meerut and a pharmaceutical distributor in Cuttack. We are verifying the facts now and will make further comments after the probe is over."
It can be noted here that earlier spurious blood pressure medicines 'Telma 40' and Telma AM were seized in Cuttack. Later, two accused allegedly involved in supplying the spurious hypertension medicines to distributors in Cuttack were arrested from Bihar.
The fake drug sale case had also reached the Orissa High Court with a public interest litigation (PIL) being filed seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the case.
Besides, duplicate Clavam 625 capsules were also seized in Bhubaneswar and Jharsuguda raising grave concerns over the alleged rampant sale of such fake drugs in the State.
(Reported by Debasis Mohanty, OTV)