The Drug Court of Dhaka on Monday awarded 10 years’ imprisonment to six persons convicted in the much-talked about paracetamol syrup adulteration case in which 76 children had reportedly died.
Dhaka Drug Court Judge M Atowar Rahman gave the verdict on Monday morning.
The court also fined them Tk two lakh each. In default, they shall be liable to undergo imprisonment for a period of six months.
The convicts are BCI (Bangladesh) Ltd directors Shajahan Sarker, ASM Badruddoza Chowdhury and Nurun Nahar; executive director Shamsul Haque, production manager Md Tajul Haque and quality control manager Ayesha Khatun.
Of them, only Shajahan was present in the court at the time of the verdict while the others have been on the run since the case was filed. Police are yet to arrest them.
Charges against the convicts were placed on January 2, 1993 and they were indicted on August 2, 1994.
But the case was subsequently stalled until 2011 following a defence petition filed with the High Court. The court on February 20, 2011 ordered to start trial in the case.
BCI (Bangladesh) Ltd was among the five companies tested positive for using lethal and cheap chemical diethylene glycol in their paracetamol syrups. The toxin accounted for 76 child deaths in 1992.
Cases were filed against BCI (Bangladesh) Ltd after two batches of the company’s paracetamol syrup ‘Paracem’ was found containing more than 25 per cent of diethylene glycol.
According to a survey by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, disclosed in the 1990s, as many as 2,700 children died due to renal failure after taking toxic syrup from 1982 to 1992.
Source: New Age
