The police received a tip-off of shady activities from villagers, who were fed up with the constant stench emanating out of the facility in their locality.
The lab tests of 'fresh frozen plasma' (FFP), seized by the Punjab police after a crackdown last month, have been confirmed to be not of human origin. The report from National Institute of Biologicals (NIB), Noida, dated July 4, of which dna has a copy, states that the samples "failed all tests for sterility and were not derived from human blood."
Miscreants from Behman Diwana village in Bathinda district were on their way to sell a crude mixture of egg yolk, soya milk, refined vegetable oils, water and artificial colours, in the name of FFP (a derivative of human blood), to Reliance Life Sciences (RLS) in Navi Mumbai. Äccused Dilbagh Singh, along with his accomplices, were concocting the fake mixture from a two-room house in the village.
The police received a tip-off of shady activities from villagers, who were fed up with the constant stench emanating out of the facility in their locality. On June 14, a consignment of 21,752 packets was intercepted by the Counter Intelligence branch of Punjab police from a refrigerator van belonging to a courier company in Maharashtra with number plate MH 46 AF 3167, which was doing constant rounds in the village. "The accused had loaded the packets onto the van to freeze it at -20 degree celsius so that it may appear like FFP," said Amit Duggal, district drug zonal authority, Bathinda.
RLS is one of three pharmaceutical manufacturers that produce Albumin injections for domestic supply in India, of which FFP is a major raw material. Albumin is a product administered intravenously to patients in critical care situations in hospitals for salvaging life. RLS makes Albumin available to hospitals, trade and small nursing homes.
Of the Rs 1.25 crore worth deal – struck between the now arrested Dilbagh Singh and Zahir Vohra, zonal in-charge of the plasma procurement cell of RLS for 5,000 litres of FFP – the company had made a payment of close to Rs 62 lakh to the accused. "The police have recovered close to Rs 51 lakh from the accused which were made through bank transactions," said a senior police official from Punjab.
"If a fake mixture is used in place of blood plasma in the making of Albumin, it can have life-threatening consequences for the patients," said Duggal.
RLS has admitted to the fact that a deal was struck between the accused and RLS for supplying plasma. In a statement to dna, the official spokesperson said, "Reliance Life Sciences (RLS) has been procuring plasma from several blood banks in India for manufacturing life-saving plasma proteins. Mr Dilbagh Singh had approached RLS to aggregate and source plasma for RLS from Punjab Blood banks. Before any plasma could be sent to RLS, it turned out that Dilbagh Singh had resorted to fraudulent methods and has been caught by the Punjab police. RLS has not received a single bag of plasma from this source."
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