The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Madhya Pradesh Police on Tuesday arrested Jyoti Soni, proprietor of ‘Apna Medical Store’ in Chhindwara, in connection with the death of at least 26 children in the state due to renal failure caused allegedly by the consumption of the now-banned toxic cough syrup ‘Coldrif’.
Jyoti Soni is the wife of Dr Praveen Soni, a government doctor at Chhindwara, who was practising privately, and had prescribed the cough syrup to most of the deceased children. Following his arrest, the state Health Department had suspended him.
Sub Divisional Office of Police (SDOP) and in-charge of the SIT Jitendra Jaat said the SIT team arrested Jyoti Soni from her residence in Parasia town of Chhindwara district.
The officer said till now, seven persons have been arrested in the case.
The other five arrested persons include Ranganathan Govindan, owner of the Coldrif manufacturing company ‘M/s Sresan Pharmaceuticals’ of Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu, Medical Representative, Satish Verma, Chemist K Maheshwari, wholesaler Rajesh Soni and medical store pharmacist Saurabh Jain.
As many as 26 children from Chhindwara, Pandhurna, and Betul districts of MP, mostly under the age of 5, died due to kidney failure after they were administered Coldrif cough syrup.
Similarly, at least three children died after consuming the cough syrup in neighbouring Rajasthan.
The tragedy prompted the World Health Organisation (WHO) to issue an alert against three ‘substandard’ oral cough syrups identified in India – Coldrif, Respifresh TR, and ReLife.
Tests conducted by the Madhya Pradesh government confirmed that Coldrif had 48.6 per cent of diethylene glycol, a toxic chemical, far exceeding the 0.1 per cent permissible limit.
Following the death of children, the syrup was banned in Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Puducherry, West Bengal, and Delhi.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav had asserted that the guilty in the case shall not be spared. The MP government suspended its drug controller and assistant drug controller for negligence in testing random samples of the medicine.
The Tamil Nadu government sealed Sresan Pharma’s manufacturing unit after the children’s deaths came to light.