Pharma Company Director Arrested by Gujarat NCB
Source: Times of India
The director of a pharmaceutical company in Haryana has been arrested by Gujarat’s Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for allegedly diverting a large quantity of pseudoephedrine, a key chemical used to make the banned drug methamphetamine. The NCB claims that nearly 475.2 kg of pseudoephedrine, worth Rs 2,000 crore, was diverted.
The director, Sumit Kumar, denies the allegations and says he has been wrongly implicated. The NCB had found that pseudoephedrine was missing from batches of medicine that were supposed to be exported to Sudan.
RAJKOT: A large quantity of the key chemical that could make methamphetamine worth crores is feared to have been diverted for making this banned psychotropic drug with Gujarat’s Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) arresting the director of a Haryana-based pharmaceutical company. NCB claimed that nearly 475.2 kg of pseudoephedrine, a controlled substance, which, if used by nefarious elements could make methamphetamine worth Rs 2,000 crores.
Sumit Kumar, director of Alps Lifesciences Pvt Ltd, was arrested from Sonipat on October 5, nearly five months after NCB lodged an offence against him. He was produced in a court in Rajula town of Amreli district on Friday, but the agency’s request for his custodial interrogation was turned down and he was sent to jail. Kumar told the court that he was wrongly implicated.
Acting on specific information, the NCB team searched a container carrying medicines at Port Pipavav located in the Amreli district. The consignment was to be exported to Sudan. The team collected samples of the medicine and sent them for chemical analysis. The report suggested that pseudoephedrine was missing in four batches of the consignment, contrary to the declaration that each capsule contained 120 mg of the chemical.
The NCB, Ahmedabad registered an offence under various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act against Sumit Kumar on March 31. In the court, NCB submitted that it had seized 39.60 lakh capsules and the chemical analysis proved the agency’s intelligence input about the diversion of pseudoephedrine was correct.
NCB alleged that a total of 475.2 kg pseudoephedrine was diverted by not mixing it with the medicine. According to sources, 90% of methamphetamine made illegally is using pseudoephedrine. “If we believe that 475 kg of pseudoephedrine was diverted, it could produce methamphetamine valued at Rs 2,000 crore,” the NCB told the court. Methamphetamine is a highly addictive stimulant as it acts on the central nervous system.
NCB requested for Kumar’s custody till October 8 to find out where the pseudoephedrine was diverted and other people involved in this illegal trade. Additional senior civil judge, Rajula, A H Trivedi rejected this remand application by upholding the accused’s lawyer Utkarsh Dave’s lawyer that his client had cooperated with the agency in its investigation since March. “The entire investigation is flawed and the accused has been wrongly implicated.
The manner in which the investigation was conducted was in violation of the law,” he argued. According to officials, section 9A of the NDPS Act, 1985 authorizes law enforcement agencies to control and regulate substances that can potentially be misused to make narcotics and psychotropic substances, and pseudoephedrine is one of them.
