Cough syrup deaths: Medical store owners, distributor sent on judicial remand

Lawyer for accused says store owners can’t be blamed for manufacturer’s fault.

LAHORE:

Judicial Magistrate Waseem Anjum on Wednesday remanded two medical store owners and a distributor in judicial custody for 14 days over the deaths of 19 people who consumed Tyno cough syrup.

Shahdara Town police produced Muhammad Rizwan, the owner of Ali Medical Store, Muhammad Fida, the owner of Bismillah Medical Store, and Abur Rauf, a distributor, before the court seeking physical remand for six days, saying they needed time to recover the toxic cough syrup.

Lawyers representing the accused scoffed at the police plea, asking what they had recovered in the eight days that their clients had been kept in physical remand. The judge asked the investigation officer, who replied that they had recovered nothing.

The counsel for Rauf said his client had been in the pharmaceutical business for 20 years and there was no evidence of any wrongdoing by him.

The counsel for Fida submitted that his client could not be charged with murder under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code, as even if the syrup were found to have been poisonous, the blame lay with the manufacturer and not the medical store.

The manufacturer is also an accused in the case, but is still at large. The Health Department has banned Tyno and instructed drug inspectors to seize all stock of the cough syrup, manufactured by Recko pharmaceutical company in Lahore.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2012.