Rid Pharmaceuticals Limited managing director Mizanur Rahman was sent to jail on Monday in a case filed by the drug authorities after the company’s toxic paracetamol syrup caused child deaths. Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge ANM Bashir Ullah rejected his bail petition filed on October 12, the day he surrendered in the court.

The court observed that the charges brought against him were very ‘heinous’. Innocent children died after they had been administered toxic paracetamol syrup manufactured and marketed by the company. They were virtually killed and the toxic drug was used as sword, the judge observed, adding that the key accused, Mizanur Rahman, did not deserve any compassion.

Mizanur Rahman’s counsel Syed Rezaur Rahman claimed that the whole affair was manufactured by the media. Pleading for bail, he told the court that it was a false case and it was filed due to business enmity as there was no mention of any child death caused by paracetamol syrup manufactured by the company. The counsel mentioned that Mizanur, along with his wife Sheuly Rahman, also a director of the company, on August 18 sought anticipatory bail in a High Court and the High Court granted anticipatory bail for six months to Sheuly and ordered Mizanur to surrender in the metropolitan sessions judge’s court.

The metropolitan sessions judge was also given the authority to consider any bail plea by Mizanur on surrender, the counsel argued. Public prosecutor Abdullah Abu and assistant commissioner of the police prosecution department Mokbul Hossain opposed the bail petition. Abdullah Abu argued that at least 28 children died across the country in July–August of renal failures, caused by paracetamol syrup mixed with industrial chemical diethylene glycol. Medical tests found Temset, Rid Pharma’s brand of paracetamol syrup, the main culprit in most of the death cases.

The Drug Administration on July 22 sealed off the factory of the company in the BSCIC industrial area in Brahmanbaria on charges of manufacturing the toxic syrup. The drug authorities collected samples of Temset and laboratory tests confirmed the presence of diethylene glycol in the syrup, the public prosecutor argued. The same court on October 12 posted for October 19 the hearing in the bail petition and ordered law enforcers not to arrest Mizanur during the time.

Drug superintendent M Shafiqul Islam filed the case on August 10 accusing five high officials of the company — managing director Mizanur, directors Sheuly Rahman and Abdul Ghani, and pharmacists Mahbubul Islam and Enamul Haque — of using diethylene glycol in Temset. Four more cases were filed against the company in Brahmanbaria, Comilla, Narayanganj and Sylhet on similar charges.

Most of the 28 children died of acute renal failure after taking paracetamol syrup for fever in districts surrounding Brahmanbaria, where the Rid Pharma factory is located, and they were reportedly administered the toxic analgesic syrup Temset produced by the company. On September 16, the judge of the drug court in Dhaka, M Golam Murtaza Mazumder, ordered attachment of moveable and immoveable property of the five Rid Pharma officials. The same court on August 11 issued warrants for arrest of the five Rid Pharma officials.

The company used diethylene glycol, meant for tannery and rubber industries, instead of propylene glycol which is costlier by five times. Diethylene glycol costs Tk 200 a litre while propylene glycol costs Tk 1,100. Rid Pharmaceuticals had received drug manufacturing licence in 2006 and started marketing 12 drugs. The company also violated the Drugs (Control) Ordinance 1982 by manufacturing paracetamol syrup as it had obtained permission for manufacturing paracetamol suspension only, the complaint said.

Health minister AFM Ruhal Haque on July 29 confirmed the presence of diethylene glycol in a batch of Temset syrup produced by Rid Pharma after receiving the report of the official committee investigating the latest spate of child deaths caused by toxic medicine. Analgesic syrup containing diethylene glycol caused kidney diseases in 339 children between 1990 and 1992, and most of them died. No person was punished for the offence at that time.

-New Age