The Detective department of Kolkata Police arrested one more person in connection with the case where expired medicines were changed into new by replacing their expiry date label.
On Saturday, Poltu, the third accused was arrested by the investigators. Later, he was produced before the court, which remanded him to judicial custody.
Kolkata Police had earlier found the names of three pharmaceutical companies that were involved in the expired medicines racket.
These companies allegedly sent their machines to the two accused Burrabazar businessmen, whom police arrested on Thursday night on the charge of changing the expiry date of medicines and selling them in the market. The two would erase the expiry dates using those machines and put expiry date labels.
Kolkata Police had arrested Pawan Jhunjhunwala and Rinesh Sarogi for their involvement in the racket on Thursday. Jhunjhunwla's printing press at Canning Street was also sealed by police. The two were produced before the court on Friday and remanded to police custody till March 18. Police learnt that Jhunjhunwala would do the printing operation in his printing press, while Sarogi used to store the medicines at an apartment on GT Road in Belur.
Senior officials of the Drug Control Board and police jointly raided the printing press on Canning Street owned by Jhunjhunwala. Here, the expiry dates on the leaf of each strip would be removed by the accused by using a chemical.
Four packets of medicines were found, whose expiry dates were erased with nail police remover and new dates were put. The market value of the medicines is Rs 3.5 lakhs.
The Detective department would prepare a list of top officials of the pharmaceutical companies who would be interrogated.
The investigators could get further leads after the interrogation is over.