KARACHI, May 28: The drugs court on Saturday indicted four suspects in as many cases pertaining to the manufacture and sale of unauthorised and spurious drugs.

Three suspects — Mohammad Aslam, Kamaia Bai and Ishwar Lal — have been booked for allegedly stocking and exhibiting expired, substandard medicines, government property drugs, physician’s samples and unwarranted drugs for sale while the fourth suspect, Sabeen Usman of the Standard Drugs Company, was accused of manufacturing substandard drugs and selling them under a false warranty.

The chairman of the drugs court, Saathi Ishaq, read out the charges against the suspects, who pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the allegations.

The court summoned all prosecution witnesses directing them to appear in court to record their testimonies on the next hearing.

According to the prosecution, the drug inspectors along with an area magistrate and officials of the Federal Investigation Agency had raided accused Aslam’s warehouse in Karachi in 2005 and a medical store of Kamaia and Ishwar in Mehar in 2009 and seized spurious, expired and unauthorised drugs.

In another such case, a drug inspector raided a medical store in Shah Latif Bhitai Hospital, Hyderabad, in October 2009 and seized samples of a cough syrup and sent it to the drugs testing lab, which declared the same as substandard quality.

The proprietor of the medical store produced the bill warranty of Al-Rab distributors, who produced the bill invoice of the Standard Drug Company, Hyderabad. The same firm was also booked in another case for manufacturing substandard drugs and selling the same under a false warranty.

FIR against policemen ordered

A sessions court on Saturday ordered registration of a criminal case against some policemen for raiding a house and committing a robbery there.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (east) Abdullah Channa directed the SHO of the Soldier Bazaar police station to record the statement of the applicant, Suryia Ali Bakhsh, and register an FIR accordingly.

The applicant, through her lawyer Nasir Ahmed, filed an application under Section 22-A of the criminal procedure code in court stating that on May 7, 2011 a police team headed by Shafi Muhammad Kalwar broke into her house located within the remit of the Soldier Bazaar police station.

She alleged that the policemen robbed her and other family members of cash and jewellery, tore her clothes and threatened her of dire consequences.

The applicant maintained that she was running a travel agency and prior to this incident Mr Kalwar, said to be an inspector in the Federal Investigation Agency’s anti-human trafficking circle, had allegedly demanded Rs200,000.

She stated that she had approached the police station concerned, but the police refused to register a case. She prayed to the court to direct the police officials concerned to lodge her FIR.

After hearing both sides, the additional district and sessions judge ordered: “The SHO is directed to record the statement of applicant under Section 154 of CrPC and register the FIR against the proposed accused, if cognizable offence is made out as and when applicant appears at police station.”

The SHO is further directed to submit a compliance report after the appearance of the applicant at the police station, the court order said.

Bomb hoax

A bomb hoax created panic in and around the district courts Malir causing partial suspension of the legal proceedings on Saturday afternoon.

The police said that at around 1pm an intelligence agency forwarded a message to the town police officer’s office about a bomb in the Malir courts.

A heavy contingent of police cordoned off the area and the courts were evacuated and the bomb disposal squad searched the premises for around three hours, but found no explosives.