NAUSHAHRO FEROZE, Oct 27 A medical store keeper sold sedative tablets, Valium-5 and Lexotanil, to students of class four without doctor's prescription and hurled insults at the principal and teachers when they complained to him here on Tuesday.

Principal Shahid Samoon complained to police that he along with teachers went to the medical store and asked the store keeper why he sold the sedative drugs to minor students without prescription. He got angry and hurled insult at them, he said.

He said that the students Tahreen Tunio, Fatima Nazir and Komal Tagar had fallen unconscious in the school after interval about 12 days ago and taken to Hyderabad for treatment.

When they rejoined the school on Tuesday he asked them about their health and they told him that they had pain in the stomach that day and gone to the medical store to buy some pain killers. As soon as they took the tablets they fell unconscious, they told him.

The principal said that he gave some money to the girls and asked them to go to the same medical store again and demand the same tablets, which were given to them earlier. The storekeeper gave them 10 tablets of Valium-5 and four tablets of Lexotanil, he said.

Later, owners of medical stores took out a procession and went to the police station to lodge a counter-complaint against the principal and teachers. They accused the teachers and their supporters of robbing the Shafqat medical store.

A police official told this correspondent that both the parties had left the police station, saying they would come back later. A non-cognizance report had been lodged abut the complaint, he said.