Vijayawada: In a massive exercise named ‘Operation Garuda’, joint teams of officials from vigilance and enforcement, the Elite Anti-Narcotics Group for Law Enforcement, drugs control administration and police have carried out state-wide raids on medical shops and agencies to check the unauthorised sale of psychotropic substances and prescription drugs to avoid their abuse by the youngsters on Friday.
In the course of raids involving 100 teams, they found a series of violations of various rules of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, and also the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, and accordingly, 120 shops were found to have been involved in violation of the DCA, 1940, and also five shops have also been involved in violation of the same provisions, and one shop has been seized under the NDPS Act, where a major haul of especially psychotropic substances has been seized.
The authorities zeroed in on M/s Bhargava Medical Store at Avanigadda in Krishna district and seized tramadol tablets of 37.5 mg each to the tune of 55,961 tablets weighing 2.09 kg; 2,794 tramadol injections of 100 mg weighing 279.4 gm; alprazolam tablets of 0.5 mg each of 4,500 pieces weighing 2.25 gm and the same tablets of 0.25 mg each of 5,535 weighing 1.3 gm; and codeine phosphate with each syrup containing 10 mg of 2,772 bottles weighing 554.4 gm.
This medical store has been found to have been involved in the unauthorised procurement and sale of such drugs in the last two years, as no bills of purchase or sale have been found. The police booked a case against the owner of the medical store Konakalla Rammohan under the provisions of the NDPS Act, 1985, and such an offence would carry a jail term ranging from 10 to 20 years.
Sources say that the medical store located in a small town and involved in such sales of huge quantities of psychotropic substances indicates that some drug peddlers have been involved in purchasing them and selling them to the addicts elsewhere.
Other offences include the sale of drugs without a doctor’s prescription, no issue of bills, stocking of expired drugs, no maintenance of sale and stock registers and so on.
The raids have been carried out under the leadership of EAGLE inspector general of police Ake Ravi Krishna.
The Director General of Police Harish Kumar Gupta in a statement issued here stated that based on instructions from the Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, they had carried out state-wide raids on medical shops and medical agencies to make AP free from drugs and warned the owners of all medical shops/agencies not to involve themselves in the sale of drugs without a prescription by saying that it might lead to drug abuse in the state. He said that they would continue to carry out the surprise raids. He appealed to the people to give information by calling at ‘1972’ with regard to drugs-related abuses in their areas in the state.
