MULTAN, Oct 1: The district police claimed on Sunday to have seized spurious pesticides worth Rs500 million and arrested 17 people, four of them Egyptians, involved in the illegal trade.

A Mumtazabad police team comprising SPO Maqbool Ahmad Butt, SHO (Inspector) Kamal Ahmad and ASP Fayyaz Ahmad, along with DDO (Agriculture) Chaudhry Muhammad Arshad, raided a pharmaceutical company godown near Model Town on Bahawalpur Road and seized 200,000 litres of the expired

medicines which were brought from Egypt.

The pesticides included Perphinofos, Lumda, Delta Mitharine, Fivorate, Ando Quality, Ando Commercial, Ameda Quality Corporate, Alfa Cyber, Caloro Pairyfos and Tafabon which were filled in one, 10 and 100-litre containers. Besides, at least 1,500 cartons of expired fertilisers were seized.

The police arrested four Egyptians — Mahmood, Abdul Aziz, Marwan and Izat Fawad — besides Muhammad Farooq, Mukhtar, Manzoor Husain, Muhammad Shafique, Muhammad Naeem, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Mustafa, Muhammad Ismail, Zafar Ali, Muhammad Saeed, Shaukat, Tariq Mahmood and Mahmood Shaheen.

DPO Munir Ahmad Chishti said these enemies of the country had been engaged in the business for long.

It is learnt that the local pharmaceutical company has been working with the name of ‘Help’ which has all the dealings with Egyptian gangsters.

News agency ‘Online’ quotes the police as claiming earlier that the worth of over 200,000-litre pesticides was Rs2 billion.