Peshawar admin launches crackdown on spurious drugs

PESHAWAR: After successful campaign against encroachments and prominent restaurants for selling expired food items, the Peshawra district administration has now launched a crackdown on unregistered and spurious drugs in the city.
Addressing a press conference here Tuesday, Deputy Commissioner Riaz Khan Mahsud said most of the drugs seized during raids had been stolen from the public sector hospitals.He said the drive against unregistered, expired and spurious drugs had been launched with the help of inspectors of the Health Regulatory Authority (HRA).
The deputy commissioner said seven drugstores and four godowns were sealed in Namak Mandi locality in the city for selling and storing expired, unregistered and spurious drugs. The official said the raiding team recovered two sacks of expired drugs and 50 kilograms unregistered drugs from three goods transport godowns in Haji Camp locality in the city.
From one of the godowns, the deputy commissioner said several packed cartons of drugs being stolen from hospitals in Punjab were also recovered.He said they would inform the Punjab government and would recommend stern action against the culprits involved in this dirty business.
The official said seized drugs had been sent to the laboratory for chemical analysis. Riaz Mahsud said in the vicinity of the defunct Shabistan cinema, they raided three godowns of medicines and recovered hundreds of samples of multinational pharmaceutical companies and arrested six people.
The joint team of the district administration and HRA also sealed a number of unregistered drugstores at Auqaf Plaza in Dabgari Gardens.They also arrested 12 people from the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH). They were dressed in Class-IV employees’ uniforms and claimed to be the hospital employees.
They were said to be touts who used to send the patients fraudulently from the LRH to private medical and surgical centres established on the premises of the hospital.He said that for the first time the district administration inspected kitchens of prominent restaurants and hotels in Peshawar and were found selling unhygienic food to their customers. The DC said Rs7.4 million had been received from fines imposed on these hotels and shops.
Riaz Mahsud said they busted a gang of influential people involved in manufacturing of fake motor and engine oil in Shoba Bazaar and arrested 20 people involved in the illegal practices.A team led by Additional Deputy Commissioner Osama Warraich along with AAC Mohammad Fawad and Riaz Wazir raided and sealed six factories illegally packing such oil in branded bottles.
They had set up small factories in Shuba Bazaar where they would clean used motor and engine oil by adding chemical to get golden color.He said 20 people were arrested and would be tried in Consumer Court.
ADC Osama Ahmad Warraich along with AC Shahana Shakir, AAC Mohammad Fawad, Mohammad Shoaib, Abdul Nabi and Mahmood examined a number of dental clinics on University Road near Board Bazaar. Out of eight clinics, three had proper documents and were qualified doctors while three clinics were being operated by unqualified people.Two other clinics were run by Afghan nationals without any medicine degree or registration with HRA. Five clinics were sealed and their operators arrested.