Mujtaba Wani
SRINAGAR: A general strike is being observed in Kashmir to protest against the sale of spurious drugs in valley hospitals.
Shops and business establishments are closed and traffic has been affected, witnesses say. Banks and government-run schools are functioning as usual though.
Police and paramilitaries have been deployed in strength to maintain law and order.
Octogenarian separatist leader and chairman of the hardline Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Shah Geelani had called for the shutdown. He called the sale of fake drugs as “genocide of Kashmiri people” by the government.
Lab tests found that an antibiotic tablet – Maximizen-625 – supposed to contain 500 mg of amoxicillin had zero percent of it.
These antibiotics, used to ‘cure’ bacterial infection, were supplied in tens of thousands to Kashmir hospitals including the Lal Ded maternity hospital.
Deaths
The scandal has caused concern in the valley. President of the Doctors Association of Kashmir (DAK), Dr. Nisar-ul-Hasan said the fake drugs may have caused hundreds of deaths in the valley last year.
“If the fake tablets resulted in infection getting worse in mere ten percent of the patients, the number would still be in hundreds,” Hasan said.
Separatist leaders and civil society members have demanded that a criminal complaint be lodged against Sham Lal Sharma, the state’s former health minister during whose tenure the fake drugs were purchased.
The former health minister has, however, denied involvement in the scam saying he had no role in purchasing the fake medicine.
The authorities have formed a high-level committee to probe into the scandal. Its report is expected to be released Tuesday.
Civil society members have said they reject the report as the high level probe committee includes an officer who was involved in the purchase of the fake drugs.
