Medicines worth ₹7L seized from accused: Vij

CHANDIGARH : Haryana health and family welfare minister Anil Vij on Sunday said after busting a fake cancer injection racket, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) department has seized medicines worth over ₹7 lakh from a Turkey-based accused Ali Tarmanani.

All the seized medicines are related to cancer and diabetes, which were imported illegally. The racket came to fore last week on Wednesday when the FDA busted an international racket selling spurious injections to cure cancer with the arrest of four accused, including a foreign national Tarmanani, who was staying in a Mumbai hotel before being arrested.

According to health minister Vij, FDA officers interrogated Tarmanani and seized the stock of drugs, records, registers, documents etc. under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. The officials also seized Syrian Arab Republic passport from Tarmanani.

The health minister said the FDA officials seized six types of medicines after the disclosures made by Tarmanani during the remand. Ali Tarmanani said he did not have any import NOC related to these medicines and all these products were brought from Istanbul for sale through the distributors in his contact.

The health minister said Tarmanani was asked about injection Opdiva 100 mg and 40 mg and XGEVA 120 mg, which according to the label requires storage of these medicines at 2 to 8 degrees, during the flight. When asked about how he maintained the necessary cold chain in the flight, the accused said he was selling these medicines without maintaining cold storage temperature conditions.