Adulterated Drugs
IO summoned to explain final report
Court Correspondent
A Dhaka court yesterday directed an investigation officer (IO) of a criminal case to appear in person before it on September 19 to explain why and how he submitted a final report against three people arrested for their alleged involvement in preparing adulterated medicines.The three people -- Shahjahan, proprietor of Anirban Medical Industry, Saiful Islam, its chemist and accounts officer Mafijul Islam -- were arrested during the Anti-Adulteration Drive while they were making adulterated medicines in unhygienic and dirty conditions. Judge Mohammad Momin Ullah of the Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court issued the order on the IO Saidur Rahman following an oral plea of an assistant public prosecutor (APP) for further investigation into the matter. During the hearing on the final report, APP Farid Halder told the court that the three people were arrested red-handed while preparing adulterated medicines in the medicine manufacturing plant and the IO could not have submitted the final report praying for discharge of the accused if he had investigated the case properly. This is why the APP prayed for issuance of a show cause notice upon the IO for his negligence in conducting the probe. The IO submitted the final report to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court, Dhaka in April this year and prayed for discharging the three, as charges brought against them under the Special Powers Act, 1974 were found to be false and baseless. A magistrate of a mobile court along with BDR, police, BSTI, Narcotics Control Department (NCD) and DCC personnel was present during an inspection at Anirban Medical Industry at East Jurain in the city's Shyampur area on October 10 last year. After the inspection, the magistrate directed the law enforcement agencies to arrest the three as they were preparing Vitamin B Complex, Multi-Plus Vitamin and several other medicines. The police also seized samples of some medicines from there and sent those to the Drug Testing Laboratory at Public Health Institute of Mahakhali for testing. Assistant Examiner Dr Abu Bakker Siddiq of the institute submitted a report on April 6 after testing the medicines seized from the industry and stated that the medicines passed the test. On the basis of the test report, the IO submitted his final report mentioning that the case was filed on false and baseless information.
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