5,000 cough syrup bottles rejected, but police seized 1,150

Ambika Sharma

Solan, April 20

Employees of Apple Field pharmaceutical at Paonta Sahib in the district had sold 3,850 bottles of codeine-based cough syrup before the police seized 1,150 bottles on April 18 evening.

As per a police probe, a stock of 5,000 bottles of Kufflok codeine phosphate chlorpheniramine maleate syrup was rejected due to an error in labelling. It was manufactured in April 2019 but it bore the expiry date of March 2019. As per the norms, the stock should have been destroyed, but it was stored in the pharma unit. In 2019, it had escaped detection by a raiding team, which had confiscated stock for the violation of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.

“Rajiv Kumar, co-owner of the pharma unit, who is on police remand, told his interrogators that he did not know that the stock was stored in the waste packaging material room,” said Ramakant Thakur, DSP, Paonta Sahib.

Rajiv Kumar had complained to the police about a theft in the sealed factory a few days ago. On April 17, the police had arrested Sandeep Kumar, a former employee of the factory, with 187 bottles of the cough syrup at Badripur Chowk in Paonta Sahib.

The police are trying to ascertain whether Sandeep Kumar had sold cough syrup or Rajeev Kumar was also part of the racket, as each bottle priced at Rs 125 was sold for Rs 300 on the black market.

The DSP said 1,458 bottles of various sedative cough syrups were confiscated this year while 275 syrup bottles were seized in 2022 and 95 in 2020 and 2021. The police had seized 9,604 bottles of cough syrup in 2019. “The sale of codeine-based cough syrup and formulations is banned in Uttarakhand, so these are sold on the black market in Paonta Sahib,” he added.

State Drugs Controller Navneet Marwaha said Sunny Kaushal, Assistant Drugs Controller-cum-Licensing Authority, had been directed to submit a fact-finding report pertaining to the seizure of 1,150 cough syrup bottles from Apple Field pharmaceutical unit.