Around 13 FIRs has been registered by police against an e-commerce portal for selling medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) kits and abortion medicines allegedly without prescription in parts of Maharashtra.
The Food and drug department has registered the FIR’s at various police stations in Mumbai, Thane, Jalgaon, Kolhapur, Aurangabad and Nagpur based on the complaint lodged by the FDA
The FDA had received information that abortion drugs were being sold illegally on Meesho.com, an online portal.
For the purpose of verification, orders were placed for MTP kits without prescription in various parts of the state by the FDA personnel, who acted as decoy customers.
The portal sells cosmetic products, jewellery, apparel and some other items.
In its beauty and health section, products related to make-up, wellness and skin-care are available.
No section on drugs is visible on its homepage. However, when ‘MTP’ is typed in the search window, options like MTP abortion kit, MTP kit tablets, MTP pills become visible and the orders were accepted without the doctors’ prescription.
A total of 16 MTP kits were received through courier parcel in parts of the state.
These kits were manufactured by a leading pharma company, and were distributed from Varanasi, Agra and Delhi.
The MTP kit is a Schedule-H drug under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and it is mandatory to sell it only on the prescription of a registered medical practitioner. Also, according to the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 2002 and Rules, 2003, it is mandatory to use this medicine at a health facility and under the supervision of a service provider as its use may endanger the health and life of the patient.
