March 9: Police arrested a medicine retailer and a printing press owner today for recycling expired medicines across the city.

Four cartons of expired medicines, in the process of being recycled with fresh labels of various brands, have been seized, the police said.

Pawan Jhunjhunwala, 45, a businessman who lives in Howrah's Shibpur, was running a press at 21 Canning Street where the labels were printed, the police said.

Rinesh Sarawgi, the other arrested, used to stock expired medicines in a godown at 322 GT Road in Belur, the police said.

"A case was started under the drugs and cosmetics act following a complaint by the state drugs control organisation," Vishal Garg, additional commissioner, said.

"The FIR was drawn at Hare Street police station. Based on the complaint, we have arrested two people."

The arrests came this afternoon following simultaneous raids at the printing press and the godown.

An officer of the detective department said it was unclear if the arrested had a nexus with medicine stores in the city.

"There could be two possibilities. Some medicine stores were selling their expired stock at a lower price to these people and then taking back the recycled consignment at a low rate," an officer said.

"Or the stores where the recycled medicines were being supplied weren't aware that the medicines had expired," he said.

Garg said the police would investigate how the racket was functioning and what type of drugs were getting recycled in the market.

The seized medicines would be sent to the drug control organisation for examination and analysis.