Doctors hold strike

Mohit Khanna

Tribune News Service 

Ludhiana, December 23

The arrest of Khanna-based Dr Ashish Sharma, from whom 9,000 tablets of psychotropic drugs were recovered on December 19, had received the tablets through the supplier of a pharmaceutical company.

The fact has come to light during the investigation by the Khanna police.

During the probe, it was found that Dr Ashish was receiving the drugs meant for de-addiction centres. He sold them to patients at a premium.

The SSP-Khanna, Gurpreet Singh Gill, said: “The doctor was receiving the drugs through a supplier, who was supposed to supply them to de-addiction centres.”

Sources said the police were conducting raids to arrest the supplier.

It is learnt that the supplier was in contact with other doctors and was selling the schedule–H drugs to them as well.

Meanwhile, no further breakthrough was made in the case of Dr Sudha Vasudev, MD Psychiatry, who was heading the de-addiction centre at the Lord Mahavir Civil Hospital.

Both Dr Vasudev and Dr Sharma were nabbed on December 19 during separate raids conducted by police teams from Jagraon and Khanna.

While around 20,000 habit-forming drugs were recovered from Dr Vasudev, nearly 9,000 tablets of psychotropic drugs were recovered from Dr Ashish.

’Won’t tolerate ill-treatment of psychiatrists’
A delegation of psychiatrists submitted a memorandum to the authorities concerned. They expressed displeasure over the manner in which the police arrested the two doctors and projected them as hardcore criminals.

They said the recent crackdown on drug mafia led to a surge in the number of patients visiting drug-addiction centres and psychiatrists, hence a big gap in the demand and supply of drugs.

“The arrest of two doctors without warning and an appropriate departmental inquiry has shocked the psychiatrists. We shall not tolerate the way the psychiatrists, who are treating the drug addicts of the state, are being ill-treated by the administrative agencies. We want to make it aptly clear that we are not drug peddlers and are not dispensing poison,” reads the memorandum.