A Dhaka court yesterday acquitted all five officials of Rid Pharmaceuticals Ltd in a case filed over the manufacture of a toxic Paracetamol syrup that killed 28 children across Bangladesh in 2009. The acquitted are: Rid Pharma managing director Mizanur Rahman, directors Sheuli Rahman, the wife of Mizanur Rahman, and Abdul Gani, and pharmacists Mahbubul Islam and Enamul Haque.
Mizanur Rahman and his wife Sheuli Rahman are currently on bail, while the other three are still at large. Judge M Atoar Rahman of the Dhaka Drug Court passed the acquittal order yesterday morning. In its order, the court said the charges brought against the accused could not be proven due to the 'incapability and inefficiency' of the investigator. From June to August in 2009, a total of 28 children died across the country of renal failure caused by the intake of the Paracetamol syrup and suspension manufactured by Rid Pharma.
On August 10, 2009, drug superintendent Shafiqul Islam had filed the case with the Dhaka Drug Court against the accused persons, who were acquitted yesterday by the court. Quoting the court verdict, advocate Asraful Alam, who has dealt with a number of such cases, told this correspondent that the complainant and the investigator was the same person in the case. In its order, the court also slammed the investigator for not submitting the seizure list properly and for failing to bring witnesses before the court for recording their deposition in the case.
Alam observed that the failure of the drug administration was very unfortunate. If it had conducted its duties properly during the investigation and trial proceedings of the case, the court could mete out punishment to the accused persons, he added. The drug administration has conducted a poor investigation in connivance with the accused persons so that the court would not be able to punish them, he alleged. Action should be taken against the investigator for carrying out a poor investigation in the case, he noted.  Supreme Court lawyer advocate Ahsanul Karim told The Independent that the manufacturers of poisonous “medicines” should be treated as murderers who should be made to walk the gallows, if anyone should die after taking their medicines.
But the law—the Drugs (Control) Ordinance, 1982—under which medicine adulterators are tried—says nothing in case of deaths or disabilities resulting from adulterated drugs, he said.
A person who manufactures, imports, distributes or sells adulterated or spurious drug may get the highest of 10 years’ imprisonment, or be fined Tk. 2 lakh, or both, says the ordinance.
“It is a very weak law. The law should be amended after incorporating provisions of death penalty for such offences or the trial should be held under Section 302 of the penal code for murdering the people,” he argued.
A criminal expert, advocate Khurshid Alam Khan, said the drug administration has no training like the police or the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to conduct the investigation into a case.
Citing the example of the toxic Paracetamol syrup that killed 28 children across Bangladesh in 2009, Khan said the cases filed by the drug administration for murdering people should be transferred to the police department or CID for comprehensive investigation to ensure justice.
If the perpetrators receive exemplary punishment for making poisonous medicines, they would be more sincere while making the medicines, he noted.
In the first-ever instance of conviction for drug adulteration in Bangladesh, a Dhaka Drug Court awarded 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment to an owner and two officials of Adflame Pharmaceuticals in July 2014 in a case filed over the deaths of 76 children by adulterated drugs in 1990.
On August 17, 2015, a Dhaka Drug Court sentenced six BCI Pharmaceuticals officials—three directors and three managers—to 10 years in prison for producing and marketing spurious Paracetamol syrups. In addition to the existing Drug Act, 1940, the government had enacted the Drugs (Control) Ordinance, 1982, to control the manufacture, imports, distribution and sales of the drugs. The Drug Act, 1940, of the British era contains the same punishment. But both laws are silent in respect of deaths or any physical harm caused by adulterated or spurious drugs, observed Anwar Zahid Bhuiyan, a former public prosecutor of a drug court. He termed the existing ordinance insufficient in terms of bringing to book people involved in adulterating drugs. There is no bar to amending the law with the provision of capital punishment, he noted.