Kolkata: 2 arrested for reprinting dates on expired medicines

Two persons have been arrested after a printing unit at Canning Street in north Kolkata was raided by the police, where dates on expired medicines were being changed to be sent again to medicine wholesalers.

Police sources said that the owner of the printing unit at 21B Canning Street, Pawan Jhunjhunwala, along with a medicine wholesaler, who lived at Belur in Howrah district, used to stock expired medicines. At his workshop in Kolkata, they used nail polish removing spirits to remove the date and other numbers on the strips and then print new dates. Later these medicines would be delivered to many wholesalers and resold.

“Based on complaints and specific information, we conducted the raid and seized many expired life-saving drugs, antibiotics and vitamins worth around Rs 3.5 lakh from the place. A case under the Medical Act have been started against the duo. We are trying to find out who else is involved in the racket and which are the places these people delivered these tampered medicine strips to,” said a senior police official.

It was found out that the shop in the busy market place used to be a courier company outlet and had been involved in this illegal business for over two years.

Officials at the Directorate of Drugs Control said that there were about 80,000 registered shops under the Drugs Control and many unregistered shops also operated. “There is a severe lack of manpower with us to keep a tab on so many medicine shops across the state,” a senior drugs control officer said.