Pedlars of children's death go free
Five officials of a pharmaceuticals company that allegedly manufactured toxic paracetamol which led to the death of 28 children in 2009 were acquitted on Monday. The learned judge in the case was unequivocal in his statement: the prosecution had utterly failed to prove the charge.
It seems to us that the authorities went out of their way so that these criminals could walk free. From the start, the investigation was set up to fail. Autopsy was not performed on any of the 28 children to confirm the existence of diethylene glycol, and the case reports were replete with inaccuracies and withholding of information. Even Prof Mohammad Hanif, the doctor from Dhaka Shishu Hospital, who found the presence of toxins in the drug, was not made a witness.
These barely scratch the surface; a myriad of loopholes, shoddy investigation procedures, and a complete apathy from the Drug Administration has resulted in the inevitable outcome of the case.
All this, we have seen before too, in the case of the 5 drug companies accused in 1992. Why the long delays and wilful negligence in collection and presentation of evidence? Is the Drug Administration merely incompetent, or is there some incentive for them in seeing these pedlars of deadly drugs are acquitted? We concur with Prof Hanif that this is a matter of regret for the entire nation. Selling deadly medicine is a crime that cannot go unpunished.
While we demand that the role of the Drug Administration in its shoddy handling of the case be investigated and a new investigation launched against Rid Pharmaceuticals, we wonder whether the court had any option at any point in time during the trial, when the lacunae were emerging, to order fresh investigation.
Comments