She was arrested after the director of Pharma company G Ranganathan took her name and said it was the duty of the production manager to check the quality of every batch. Sreesan pharmaceuticals’ production manager and quality control in-charge has been arrested from Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu by the special investigation team (SIT) of Chhindwara police in connection to the deaths of 23 children due to toxic cough syrup.
“The manager K Maheshwari cleared the batch without quality testing. She was arrested after the director of Pharma company G Ranganathan took her name and said it was the duty of the production manager to check the quality of every batch,” said an investigating officer. SIT reached Chennai on Monday with Ranganathan and has been probing for the past three days. However, the probe was hampered after the enforcement directorate (ED) raided his premises.
“The company was running in a very bad shape in a 2,000 sq ft area. There was no proper system from quality control to testing as per norms. The department We have also seized some documents including formulation to manufacture the cough syrup,” he added.
The decisions come amid a massive outrage across the country over the deaths of at least 22 children from Madhya Pradesh, mostly residents of Parasia village in Chhindwara district, in last one month due to suspected renal failure after consuming the contaminated cough syrup. Some other children are currently undergoing treatment at hospitals in Nagpur in Maharashtra. Meanwhile, in Chhindwara, police arrested a wholesaler Saurabh Jain and a pharmacist Rajesh Soni for failing to inform them about the stock of Coldrif syrup.
The police had registered a case against paediatrician Dr Praveen Soni and syrup manufacturer Sreesan Pharmaceuticals under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 276 (adulteration of drugs) and 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder). So far, five people have been arrested in the case.
