Gujarat to check use of drugs by police job aspirants

Gandhinagar, March 9 : The Gujarat government has decided to check the alleged use of performance enhancing drugs by candidates taking physical tests for police and other such jobs, an official said Tuesday.

"We will have to put a stringent check mechanism in place to ensure that those who indulge in malpractices do not get better off than genuine candidates," a top state administration official said.

The decision comes in the wake of the death of a job aspirant during the preliminary physical tests being conducted for recruitment of sub-inspectors at the police headquarters in Ahmedabad Friday.

Sanat Rai, a 30-year-old aspirant, collapsed after successfully completing an 800-metre sprint. He died in hospital.

Assistant Superintendent of Police D. Bhadran said those supervising the physical examination noticed some aspirants vomiting after taking the tests.

After giving medical help, they were frisked and their personal belongings checked. Performance enhancing steroids and pain killers like Artac, Buscopam, Theophyline, Etofvline, Crossflam, Nocort4, Zerodol-PT and Drotikind were seized from the possession of nine of them. The candidates were let off with a warning.

Range Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ashish Bhatia said whether performance enhancing drugs were used by Sanat or not could only be ascertained after his post-mortem examination report.