CHANDIGARH: In its first crackdown in Chandigarh, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has arrested a grocery shop owner for selling ayurvedic medicines containing opium without the requisite permissions. Officials seized three cartons of Barshasha and Unani medicine Habb-EMumsik. Barshaha is used to cure cough, cold, insomnia and weakness of nerves while Habb-E- Mumsik is used for restoring virility in men. Both medicines are often used for getting a kick given their opium content. NCB officials have seized these medicines in large numbers in Punjab, especially during the recently concluded assembly elections. In the latest case, the accused Pamesh Arora, resident of sector 45, was selling the medicines from his shop in Burail. He had neither registered himself with the excise department nor maintained a record of the sale of these medicines as the rules require. NCB zonal director Kaustubh Sharma said they raided the shop after receiving a tip-off from their informers that some shops in Burail were selling ayurvedic medicines illegally. NCB sleuths raided three shops with excise officials. From Arora's shop, they recovered two cartons of Barshaha and one carton of Habb-E-Mumsik "These ayurvedic medicines contain between 8% and 32% opium," Sharma said. "In the past, we have seized Barshasha and Habb-EMumsik from chemist shops in other states and conducted lab tests which confirmed their opium content and quantity." NCB officials say that the accused grocer pleaded during the interrogation that he was not aware about the rules that limited the sale of these ayurvedic medicines and that if he had known he was committing a crime, he would have stayed away from the sale. Arora was produced in a local court and remanded in judicial custody. NCB officials are now planning to start an awareness drive among chemists in the Tricity about the rules related to selling ayurvedic medicines. In the past, the bureau has seized three types of ayurvedic medicines including Kamini, Barshasha and Habb-E- Mumsik from chemist shops in Punjab, especially Amritsar.

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