KOHAT: The district drug control authority fined nine medical store owners and sealed two others during checking here on Tuesday.

When contacted, Kohat drug control inspector Younis Khan said that there was no qualified person like pharmacist or doctor in most of the medicine shops.

He said that ironically almost all the medical stores had submitted an affidavit along with a certificate of a qualified pharmacist or doctor to the authority for issuance of licence to open a store.

In fact, they paid monthly payments to those doctors and pharmacists who sell their certificates and also come to the office at the time of issuance of licence.

However, they never come to those shops and unqualified persons usually run the medical stores, he added.

He regretted that people also encouraged such illegal stores by purchasing medicines from them.

He said that according to rules a pharmacist must be present in the hospitals for checking the prescriptions, but the government did not appoint them, which was a wrong policy.

Mr Khan said that some sedative syrups, injections and tablets were freely available and even sold in bulk to drug addicts.

Even local homeopaths bring alcohol from Darra Adamkhel and sell it in their shops, he claimed.

The drug inspector said that there were thousands of medical stores in the district and he had been trying to reach maximum of those.

GANG BUSTED: The Kohat police on Tuesday busted a gang of dacoits and seized gold and cash which was stolen from the house of an army officer in Lachi.

DSP Lachi Mirzali Khan told media persons at Kohat Police Club that dacoits had entered into the house of Subedar-Major Said Raheem in Khadarkhel area of Lachi tehsil on March 24 and took away Rs120,000 in cash, 12 tolas of gold ornaments, and mobile sets at a gunpoint.

Later, the police arrested an alleged dacoit Khalid Hussain of Dera Ghazi Khan in injured condition.

The police also tracked down his other accomplices Raees Khan, Adil Shah and Zakir Khan belonging to Lachi and recovered all the looted items.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2015

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