A mandrax tablet manufacturing unit set to commence production in the city was busted by sleuths attached to the DN Nagar police station.
MUMBAI: A mandrax tablet manufacturing unit set to commence production in the city was busted by sleuths attached to the DN Nagar police station on Wednesday. Four people were also arrested.
One of the four owners of the unit arrested is an illegal immigrant who has been overstaying in Mumbai for the past two years.
The police also seized raw material worth Rs5 lakh from the factory in Saki Naki at Andheri (east).
Mandrax is the trade name of a barbiturate type sedative drug called methaqualone. Doctors used to prescribe it as a sleeping pill in the 1960s and 1970s.
Both medical and non-medical use led to many fatal overdoses and the drug was withdrawn in the 1980s.
“The tablet manufacturing unit had been bought for Rs1.95 lakh by Razak Rupani 15 days ago. Rupani is a known name in the drugs trade and was arrested in 1984 with 340 kg of hashish, in 1989 with 2,700 kg and in 1991 with 1,000 kg of the same drug,” said inspector Pradeep Sharma.
He was in jail for 12 years in a fake currency racket case registered in Gujarat, said Sharma.
The accused have been identified as Ahmed Nadir Khan, an illegal immigrant hailing from Kabul in Afghanistan, Narayan Shetty, a chemist from Bhayandar and Ashok Tripathi, a chemist from south Mumbai.
The police said Khan had been living in Mumbai for the past two years despite his visa having expired.
“Shetty was also wanted for a 1991 narcotics case registered by the Narcotics Control Bureau and Rupani had three narcotics cases registered against him by the customs department and NCB. The tablet making machine seized from the factory has the capacity to produce 48 tablets in one go,” said senior police inspector of DN Nagar police station Ajendra Thakur.
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