Court dismisses bail application of ‘illegal’ blood bank owners

A court has dismissed an application of two men seeking post-arrest bail in a case pertaining to allegedly illegally running a blood bank and supplying blood without screening and following the prescribed criteria.

Manzoor Ali Shah and his son Mansoor Ali Shah, said to be owners of the blood bank, have been booked by Saddar police under sections 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 420 (cheating), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 34 (common intention) of Pakistan Penal Code on a complaint of Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority (SBTA) Secretary Dr Durenaz Jamal.

After hearing arguments from both sides, Judicial Magistrate (South) Zahid Ali dismissed the bail application of the suspects. He observed that Indus Hospital had made a complaint against “Day and Night Blood Bank” for using forged donor identification numbers on blood bags, while several warnings had also been issued to it by the SBTA.

He added there was sufficient material available on record in the shape of an audit report of the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), which brought on record that reagents were improperly stored in a switched-off refrigerator without temperature monitoring, while all the equipment, including cryofuge and plasma extractor, were out of service.

“It has also been disclosed in said audit report that several machines were out of record and there was no record of technical validations, calibrations or PPM were there whereas the blood bank cabinets were full of waste and dirt,” the magistrate pointed out.

“It is pertinent to mention here that the blood is being supplied by the Day and Night Blood Bank to the patients admitted in hospitals without screening and without donor on payment of money through agents.”

He said there was serious apprehension of transfusion of non-screened blood kept in an unfavourable environment to thalassemia patients and to children who are admitted to the NICH and JPMC.

“Hence there is serious question upon the safety of lives of patients who get transfused blood from the said blood bank and it would be very unjust to grant bail to the applicants/accused and it would be like giving a license to the applicants/accused to made suffer the other patients at their hand to endanger lives of patients by giving without screened blood by lacking in following the standardized parameters as prescribed,” he added.

The defence counsel argued that his clients had been falsely implicated in the present case with mala fide intentions. He said that applicant Manzoor had been working day and night in Thalassemia Hemophilia Center (welfare trust) since 2001 and there was no FIR against him, requesting the court grant bail to them.

State prosecutor Rizwana Mughal contended that the suspects were running the blood bank with a temporary permission which had expired on July 13, 2022 and they were since illegally running the blood bank.