Bengaluru: The alleged lack of surveillance of small, loss making or closed pharmaceutical companies/laboratories has turned out to be a boon for the burgeoning illegal trade of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances in India.
The recent crackdown on the illicit drug network in Hyderabad and Bengaluru by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), in which a serving Wing Commander G. Rajshekhar Reddy, city-based research scientist Venkat Rama Rao, his wife Preethi and friend Ravi Shankar Rao were arrested for allegedly manufacturing and peddling the banned drug amphetamine in a private pharma firm in Hyderabad exposes the chinks in the surveillance network of pharma companies and laboratories, said an official source.
While Reddy was the alleged kingpin in the drug racket, Venkat, who was working at a reputed biotech company in KIADB Industrial Area in Electronics City, was reportedly manufacturing amphetamine on a leased reactor from a well-known pharmaceutical company in Hyderabad. “It is shocking that the banned drug was being manufactured on the premises of a registered private pharma company. The NCB will shortly summon the owners of the firm for questioning on how they had leased the reactor to Venkat and whether they were aware of the illegal manufacturing unit on their premises,” said an official source.
Amphetamine is a stimulant and works on the central nervous system. It is highly addictive and misused as a party drug. It is banned under the NDPS Act.
In April this year, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) arrested H. Jagannadha Raju, an MSc (Chemistry) graduate, in Bengaluru for allegedly manufacturing Alprazolam in his own pharma firm in Gauribidanur, Chikkaballapur since 2012. Alprazolam is a scheduled psychotropic drug and is prescribed to people, who suffer from anxiety disorders.
Alprazolam is manufactured under licence from the Drug Controller, but according to DRI, Raju was allegedly not licensed to manufacture the drug, which is listed in Schedule II of the NDPS Act, 1985.
Last week, the NCB arrested Venkat (35) and Rao in Hyderabad and recovered 231 kg of amphetamine, worth over Rs 45 crore in the domestic grey market and Rs 231 crore in the international grey market, from them. They seized 30 grams of amphetamine and Rs 1.23 crore cash from Venkat’s house in Electronics City in Bengaluru. The NCB had issued a countrywide alert for Reddy, who was allegedly a major player in the international rug racket and he was arrested by Maharashtra police in Nanded, while he was trying to escape to Goa.
