Bengaluru/Mangaluru: The state govt is considering handing over the probe into the counterfeit pharmaceutical racket to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The investigation has uncovered suspected inter-state links, raising concerns about the network’s wider ramifications.Health and family welfare minister UT Khader told reporters in Mangaluru Tuesday that the state would refer the case to the CBI for a comprehensive investigation, given the involvement of multiple states in the manufacture and distribution of fake medicines, mostly antibiotics.The development follows the seizure of counterfeit drugs worth over Rs 5 crore near Ramanagara in Aug. Preliminary investigations by multiple agencies revealed that the medicines had allegedly been manufactured in neighbouring states before being distributed locally. The govt handed over the probe to a Special Investigation Team (SIT), which has so far arrested eight people. Pharmacy storeowner Veeresh Kumar Jain, proprietor of Krupa Health Care and suspected kingpin, was the latest to be arrested after the SIT raided his unit near Minerva Circle in the city last week.Another prime suspect, R Prashant, is currently in Azerbaijan. He has reportedly told the investigators that immigration authorities have seized his passport, making it difficult for him to return to India.The minister said he would urge the Union govt to introduce stringent legal provisions to deal with the manufacture and sale of counterfeit medicines. He advocated treating such offences as an attempt to murder, given the potential threat fake drugs pose to public health.“Those running such mafias and playing with people’s lives must be prosecuted under stringent criminal provisions,” he said. According to him, the existing penalties were inadequate, often involving licence cancellation or nominal fines. This, he alleged, allowed offenders to relocate operations to places such as Kerala or Chennai and establish new businesses in the names of family members. The minister said stronger laws were necessary to ensure that those involved in the counterfeit drug trade could not evade prosecution by shifting their operations or adopting new identities.On reports that the cartel also pushed counterfeit drugs in the name of cancer treatment, police and health dept officials maintained that they are yet to get any information from laboratories where samples have been sent for testing. “It appears that the racket was selling spurious and substandard drugs to pharmacies in hospitals, it is being checked,” sources said.INSET – 1What is the racket and how it was exposedA multi-crore counterfeit and expired medicine racket—involving critical care, ICU, and cancer drugs worth approximately Rs 5 crore—was busted at an illegal repackaging and relabelling unit in a farmhouse near Bidadi and Hejjala in Ramanagara, Bengaluru South district.The Operation: An unlicensed facility was used to source cheap, substandard, or expired medications from illegal manufacturing units across various states like Himachal Pradesh and Telangana.Modus Operandi: Operators transferred these low-cost or expired drugs into new vials, affixing forged labels and stamps of prominent multinational pharmaceutical brands like Pfizer.Distribution: These spurious critical care and life-saving drugs were then sold to hospitals and pharmacies at steep discounts—roughly 50% below market price—putting patients in intensive care units (ICUs) at severe risk.BOXPushti powder quality under scannerFollowing a complaint by MLC Dr Dhananjay Sarji about the quality of Pushti nutritional powder supplied to children through anganwadi centres, the minister directed officials of the women and child development and health departments to collect samples and send them for laboratory analysis.He asked officials to ensure that the powder supplied to beneficiaries met the prescribed quality standards. Raising the issue, Sarji alleged that the govt procured the nutritional powder from private agencies without adequate quality checks. The MLC also urged the govt to establish sophisticated laboratories for testing food and drug samples in Shivamogga and Mangaluru, respectively.
