India, April 6 -- The Delhi Police crime branch arrested five people, including a pharmacist and a contractual helper at Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) hospital, for allegedly running a racket that diverted government-supplied medicines meant for free distribution to patients, senior police officers said on Sunday.

Police said medicines, including antibiotics and critical care injections, worth around Rs.70 lakh were seized. The racket had been operating for the past 1.5 years through a chain of brokers.

The accused were identified as Neeraj Kumar,53, Sushil Kumar,47, Laxman Mukhia,48, Binesh Kumar,54, and Prakash Mehto,30, police said.

Neeraj is a wholesale medicine dealer from Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur, while Sushil, from the same distri...