Sharma said 80% of drugs were without bill and at least 50% of drugs were expired. (Representational)
The Special Task Force (STF) Ludhiana unit in a joint operation with health department claimed recovery of 9.57 lakh sedative pills from the warehouses of two Ludhiana-based pharmacists. AIG (STF) Snehdeep Sharma, addressing a press conference in Ludhiana Saturday, said a total of 9,57,380 sedative pills were recovered from Appy Pharma of Pindi Street and Jai Maa Enterprises of Sunder Nagar of Ludhiana- both owned by Parveen Goyal. He said that cost of recovered drugs was Rs 46.77 lakh. The drugs were seized under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
Sharma said 80% of drugs were without bill and at least 50% of drugs were expired. The health department has issued a notice for cancellation of pharmacy licence of Parveen Goyal, who owns both firms.
The raids were held after interrogation of two accused drug peddlers who were held earlier from Ludhiana who used to distribute the pills among addicts. “On Wednesday, 53-year old Devinder Singh was held with 11,800 sedative pills and on Friday, 28-year old Sandeep Singh was held with 10,000 pills. After interrogating them, a raid was conducted at these pharmaceuticals Friday night,” said Sharma. He added that the owner of firm Goyal was not arrested as he is having a valid licence but now health department has started proceedings to cancel the license.
Dinesh Gupta, an official from Zonal Drug Licensing Authority said that a raid conducted was last month on May 10 at Appy Pharma 67,925 tablets worth Rs 5.29 lakh were recovered. Raids were also held at two other firms- Khushdil Transports and SK Transports- from where 2.68 lakh tablets worth Rs 40.2 lakh and 4.35 lakh tablets worth Rs 36.5 lakh respectively, were seized.