New Delhi/Chandigarh, July 15 (IANS) A racket of manufacturing fake drugs of leading pharmaceutical firms has been busted in Haryana's Faridabad and spurious medicines worth lakhs of rupees have been seized, a Haryana official said Friday. Three people have been arrested.

Food and Drugs Administration Commissioner Rakesh Gupta got a tip-off that spurious drugs of noted companies like Glaxo and Alcum were being manufactured in Faridabad city, adjoining Delhi, a department spokesman said in Chandigarh.

A special team of the department, along with crime branch officials, raided the premises in Faridabad's Sector 6 and recovered huge cache of spurious drugs worth lakhs of rupees, the spokesman added.

The factory's owner, Daya Shankar Misra, had been earlier arrested in Delhi and a large amount of fake medicines seized from them.

"Misra, 55, and Dinesh Sahu, 52, were arrested from Old Delhi Railway Station Monday following a tip-off that spurious medicine racket was operating in Delhi and Faridabad," said Delhi Police's Deputy Commissioner Ashok Chand.

During interrogation, Misra told police that his employee Motilal ran the unit for him. He and Sahu also procured spurious medicines from Sanjiv Garg of Noida in Uttar Pardesh, said Chand.

Moti Lal, 35, was subsequently arrested on Wednesday from Faridabad.

The three told police they used to sell these medicines through Ram Ashish in West Bengal, Mannu at Patna, Mandeep Kumar at Ranchi and Mohammed and Kiran in Hyderabad.

All these medicines are sent by courier and private transport to all these faraway places. In Delhi, these medicines find their way for sale through their associate named Kamal .

Police said that according to a rough estimates, they supplied spurious medicines worth more than Rs.8 crore in Delhi and other states in the lat five years.

"We are investigating into the matter and efforts are on to identify and nab the rest of the accused," said Chand.