Senior IPS officer C. Vamshikrishna, Joint Commissioner of Police (West), Bengaluru City Police, will head a six-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Karnataka government to conduct a comprehensive probe into the spurious drug bust case near Bidadi. The SIT will also include officials from the Food Safety and Drug Administration Department, Karnataka, who busted the racket.

Health and Family Welfare Minister U.T. Khader had on Wednesday announced that the Department will form a joint SIT with the police to probe the case.

Officials had seized medicines worth ₹4.91 crore from an unlicenced repacking facility at a farmhouse near Bidadi. Preliminary investigations indicated that the medicines had been procured from Himachal Pradesh, Telangana and other States, where fraudulent drug manufacturing units are suspected to be operating. The medicines were allegedly relabelled at the facility with the names of reputed pharmacy brands and sold to hospitals and pharmacies at lower prices.

The SIT team comprises Mr. Vamshikrishna as its head, along with Superintendent of Police Shiva Prakash Devaraju, CID Superintendent of Police Lokesh B. Jagalasar, Assistant Drug Controller Manjunath Reddy, Assistant Drug Controller Namrata Hallur of Bengaluru South district and Drug Inspector Neha Murki.

The Government Order dated August 20 places the SIT under the supervision of the Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) and declares it a police station, empowering it to register FIRs, make arrests, conduct criminal investigations, and prosecute cases in the jurisdictional courts.

Published - August 20, 2026 07:47 pm IST