Accusing the State Government’s machineries and senior officials of the Health Department of hiding several crucial facts pertaining to the infamous botched sterilisation surgery, relatives of accused Ramesh Mahawar and his son Sumit claimed on Saturday that according to Central laboratory, Hyderabad and Kolkata reports, medicines supplied by Mahawar Pharma Private limited did not contain any poisonous substance.
The sterlisation claimed 13 women’s lives in Bilaspur district last year.
Notably, the Directors of Mahawar Pharma Private limited, Ramesh Mahawar and Sumit Mahawar, were arrested by police on criminal conspiracy charges of supplying substandard drugs which led to a botch sterilisation case, which shamed Chhattisgarh’s BJP Government.
Addressing a Press conference here, relatives of accused Directors alleged that Dr Alok Shukla then Health Secretary) and few other officials of the Department had deliberately cover-up several facts to protect themselves.
“The Government officials had presented incorrect information to the Supreme Court as well as to the office of Prime Minister and Chief Minister,’’ the drug supplier’s family members alleged.
“Central laboratory Hyderabad and Kolkata had confirmed that medicines of Mahawar Pharma Private limited did not contain poisonous substance,’’ claimed Harshita Mahawar, wife of Sumit Mahawar, charging that this fact was covered up by officials of health department as a part of conspiracy to target director of the company.
She further said that “without any authentic information, the then Health Secretary Dr Alok Shukla stated in media that drugs of Mahawar pharmaceuticals contained Zinc fluoride’’.
“Autopsy reports of women died in botched sterilisation surgery revealed that septicemia, peritonitis infection and septic shock led to death, which may be due to negligence from doctor’s side’’, claimed Harshita. It may be recalled that over 130 women who underwent sterilisation surgery at the state-run tubectomy camps in Bilaspur last year were admitted in different hospitals after they developed post operative complications.
As many as 12 out of 83 women, who were operated upon at Nemichand Jain Cancer and Research Centre at Pendari on November 8 (2014) died.
After a week of the deadly incident that hogged headlines in national media, Chief Minister Raman Singh had constituted a judicial commission headed by a retired district and sessions court Judge Anita Jha to probe into the incident.
The State Government had terminated the laproscopic surgeon RK Gupta who had conducted the botched-up sterilisation at Pendari camp and Chief Medical and Health Official Bilaspur RK Bhange supervising the procedure for "dereliction of duty" and "negligence".
An FIR was also registered against Gupta following which he was arrested in this connection. Three officials- of Health and Food and Drug department were suspended.
Moreover, Chhattisgarh Government has suspended the sale of six drugs used in tubectomies in the separate Government-organised sterilisation camps in Bilaspur district which claimed the lives of 13 women and left around a hundred ill. These drugs are tablet Ibrufen-400 manufactured by M/s Technical lab and Pharma ltd, Haridwar, tab Ciprosin- 500 (M/s Mahawar Pharma Pvt ltd, Khamardih Raipur), injection lignocaine and lignocaine HCl ((M/s Regain laboratories, Hisar), Absorbent cotton wool (M/s Hampton Industries, Raipur) and Zielone lotion (M/s G Pharma, Indore).