A 1200-page chargesheet from last year’s fake drug supply case has revealed that antibiotics given to government hospitals in Nagpur were nothing more than talcum powder mixed with starch.

The chargesheet states that the fake antibiotics were produced in a veterinary medicine laboratory in Haridwar and  were distributed throughout India. Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand were among the states where these fake antibiotics were supplied.

The money to aid these fake medicines were channelled through hawala networks by racketeers operating from Mumbai to Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

Last year, Drug Inspector Nitin Bhandarkar discovered that the medicines supplied to the rural hospital in Kamaleshwar were fake, which sparked the uproar in this case. The Drug Inspector from the Food and Drug Administration registered a case against the supplier and distributor at the Kamaleshwar Police Station the same year. Following this, the firms were also blacklisted by the office of the civil surgeon.

The case was assigned under a special probe by Rural SP Harssh A. Poddar, who later handed it over to IPS Anil Mahaske. Similar cases surfaced in Wardha, Nanded, Thane, and other regions of Maharashtra following the registration of the FIR against the racketeers.

Talcum powder mixed with starch
Image Source: MedlinePlus

Hemant Muley has been identified as the main offender for participating in the tender to supply counterfeit medicines. Apart from Hemant, Mihir Trivedi and Vijay Chaudhury have also been charged, with the latter already in jail for another fraud case.

Chaudhury later identified Saharanpur-based Robin Taneja, also known as Himanshu, and Raman Taneja as his accomplices in the operation.

"We tracked down the veterinary laboratory in Haridwar belonging to Amit Dhiman after the Taneja brothers named him. Dhiman was already in jail after being arrested by the Uttarakhand STF and was later arrested in our case as well," said IPS officer Anil Mhaske.

In December 2023, the state Food and Drug Administration (FDA) disclosed the racket when approximately 21,600 Ciprofloxacin 500mg tablets were seized from medicine stores associated with the Nagpur Civil Surgeon. The samples were tested at a government laboratory, and the results revealed that the tablets had no medicinal value whatsoever. In light of these findings, we conducted a raid at the government store at IGGMC and seized the stock of 21,600 tablets,” the FDA reported at that time.

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