Susheel Kumar, who lost his three-year-old son, with his two daughters, in Jammu. (Photo: Arun Sharma)

The Jammu and Kashmir administration Tuesday directed the police to register a case against the Himachal Pradesh-based pharmaceutical company whose cough syrup allegedly killed nine children in Udhampur district.

Sources said the move came after the administration Tuesday received a final lab report confirming the presence of a deadly compound in the ColdBest-PC syrup that caused the deaths in Ramnagar area.

Atal Dullo, the Principal Secretary of the Health and Medical Education Department, said the police have been formally asked to register an FIR against the manufacturer, Digital Vision.

Sub-divisional police officer of Ramnagar, Gharu Ram, said police officers are in the process of registering an FIR and details would be made public once it is registered.

But it was unclear whether whether the health department communique mentioned the name of the local chemist, Mohinder Singh, who had allegedly prescribed and sold the syrup to most of the children who died between December and January.

The chemist, a registered medical practitioner, is only a Class X passout with no qualifying diploma or degree. By his own admission, his father, Bharat Singh, was a vaid (traditional healer), who prescribed Ayurvedic medicines.

He claimed to have started learning under him, and it was this “experience”, along with an interview, that helped him register as a medical practitioner in 1982 with the then J&K Board of Ayurvedic and Unani System of Medicines. While the registration allowed him to only prescribe Ayurvedic medicine, on the basis of another interview in 1998, he got the licence from J&K Pharmacy Council to sell allopathic medicines as well.