In a strange turn of events, the CB-CID team of the Chennai Police probing the expired drug scam case in Tamil Nadu has conducted raids in the residences of two drug control officials in the evening of April 29.
This is the first time, the police team is questioning the regulatory officials in connection with the expired drug issue. According to sources, the investigating officials raided the houses of assistant director P Balakrishnan and drug inspector M Vijaya Kumar and seized some incriminating documents from their houses.
When contacted, C Maheswari, superintendent of CB CID said they conducted the raid on the basis of the interrogation done on the accused persons. The team has already arrested 30 persons in connection with the case including the main accused Meenakshi Sundaram. However the police team has not arrested the drug control officials.
She said there is no crystal clear evidence for any involvement of these officials with the drug racket, but we got to know that they were conniving with the accused in the drug scam. To a query whether any further search in the houses of other officials of the drug control department, the SP said that no such decision is taken.
In the second week of April, the CB-CID team had arrested a woman employee of the Government General Hospital for stealing medicines from the hospital and supplying them to one of the accused Sanjay Kumar. The investigating agency said another accused Pradip Chordia of GH Pharmacy was collecting expired drugs from the government hospital through this woman.
On Friday, April 30, the news about the raids in the houses of two drug officials has created unpleasant situation in the head office of Drugs Control Department in Chennai as one of the Deputy Directors was retiring on that day. Since the incident was questioning the dignity of the department, the send off function arranged for K Sundarasami had to be cancelled later, sources form the office said. After a long leave of two months, Sundarasami came to office just to receive the colleagues' wishes, but had to bid good bye to every body in a pensive mood.