Amritsar: GMC hunts for the Robin Hood of Drug Addicts

AMRITSAR: GMC Amritsar seems to have its own Robin Hood of sorts. And this time the wealth of this robin hood seems to be in the almirahs of Opiods substitute therapy centre of this GMC.

It has been reported that 1,826 tablets of Buprenorphine 2 mg and 711 tablets of Samoset 0.4 mg were stolen from the Opioid Substitute Therapy Centre at Government Medical College here on Sunday .A CCTV camera at the center recorded an unidentified, masked man breaking open the cupboards.

The stock stolen was distributed for free among the drug adddict patients coming to the centre .

This is not the first time such a theft has taken place with this GMC. Last year theft of a similar nature was reported and the police had made two arrests. The arrested were discovered to be

patients of the centre, who apparently stole because the centre was closed, it being a sunday. Though they had removed 11,000 tablets, only 2,920 were recovered from them; they claimed to have thrown the rest into a canal.

Buprenorphine tablets are also misused by many drug addicts to get a high. A strip of 10 Buprenorphine cost Rs.100 in the black market.

According to the Tribune a complaint filed by the Centre Head, Dr Arshdeep Kaur, the theft was discovered by a few employees of the hospital who on discovering the centre's entrance door ajar on Sunday undertook a check only to discover a medicine theft . The authorities though had stopped storing medicines in the hospital after the incident, a second theft followed after six months; revealing lack of security measures at the Guru Nank Dev Hospital.

Meanwhile, the Civil Lines police station registered a case under Sections 380 and 457 of the IPC. Police officials said they were checking the CCTV footage from the centre and nearby areas to get clues about the identity of the thief. They suspect it to be the job of the patients visiting the centre.