Uzbekistan cough syrup deaths: 3 Marion Biotech employees arrested, directors absconding, says police

The arrests come after an FIR was lodged late last night against five officials of Marion Biotech, including two of its directors, over a complaint by a drugs inspector of CDSCO. (Representative Image)

Three employees of Noida-based Marion Biotech have been arrested for selling adulterated medicine that allegedly led to the death of 18 children in Uzbekistan last year, police informed on March 3.

The Noida police have arrested Marion Biotech’s head of operation Tuhin Bhattacharya, Atul Rawat, the manufacturing chemist, and Mool Singh, the analytical chemist, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Marion Biotech had supplied the cough syrups that reportedly caused the deaths of children in Uzbekistan; a joint team of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) and Uttar Pradesh drug authorities also found several irregularities in the plant.

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The arrests come after an FIR was lodged late last night against five officials of Marion Biotech, including two of its directors, over a complaint by a drugs inspector of CDSCO.

During the joint probe, samples of Marion Biotech's drugs were checked and the team found 22 of them to be “not of standard quality” (adulterated and spurious), according to the complainant drug inspector.

Rajeev Dixit, Assistant DCP, Central Noida, has informed that the two directors of Marion Biotech are on the run.

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Marion Biotech, which has its office in Sector 67 in Noida, had come under the scanner in December last year for its cough syrup Dok-1, which is suspected to have led to the death of 18 children who consumed it in Uzbekistan, after which the CDSCO launched a probe into the matter.

(With PTI inputs)