- Cough syrup containing toxic diethylene glycol was found in Indore in 2023
- Manufacturing license was suspended in April 2024, court case filed in October 2025
- Later contamination in Chhindwara involved different companies and products
Long before the cough syrup controversy exploded into a tragedy in Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara, a chilling warning had already surfaced in Indore and it was not vague, not technical, not debatable. It was chemical, measurable, and terrifying.
A question tabled in the Madhya Pradesh assembly shows that in 2023, a cough syrup sample lifted in Indore from a completely different company and product had already failed on the same deadly parameter that later shook Chhindwara.
The question was asked by MLA Rajan Mandloi, and the written reply was submitted by the Public Health and Medical Education Minister Rajendra Shukla.
The Indore Red Flag in 2023: A Syrup That Failed Hard
The sample collected in Indore on June 16, 2023 was found "Not of standard quality" because it contained diethylene glycol beyond permissible limits. The product name was (Naturcold) Syrup, a combination cough and cold preparation containing paracetamol, phenylephrine hydrochloride and chlorpheniramine maleate.
The manufacturer named in the lab record was Riemann Labs Pvt Ltd, Indore. Batch details are listed in the document as batch number E 22053, manufacturing date March 2022, expiry February 2025.
And then comes the number that reads like poison, not medicine. The government analyst report recorded diethylene glycol at 32.65 per cent wv, against a permitted limit of not more than 0.1 per cent wv. A second confirmation followed. The Central Drugs Laboratory report noted the sample contained 30.95 per cent w v of diethylene glycol and again declared it not of standard quality.
In simple words, this was not a "minor quality variation." This was a cough syrup carrying a chemical contamination so extreme it should have triggered an emergency level response.
The answer also mentions departmental action, including suspension of manufacturing licence on April 5, 2024. But the same note shows the criminal complaint reached court much later, with the case stated to have been presented before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Indore on October 8, 2025. That gap is exactly what the assembly question points toward - because the Chhindwara tragedy happened after the Indore warning was already on record.
Chhindwara Later, But Not The Same Product, Not The Same Company
The documents also indicate that the later failed samples linked to Chhindwara were from different products and different manufacturers, not the Indore company and not the Paracold Syrup batch. That distinction matters because it suggests something bigger than one factory. It suggests a pattern.
In the 2025 to 2026 multiple cough syrup samples from Chhindwara and Jabalpur are listed as failing due to diethylene glycol levels again exceeding permissible limits, including figures as high as around 46 per cent.
In other words, even after a massive Indore failure was detected and documented, the state still saw later cough syrup samples failing on the same deadly impurity, in other districts, from other players.
MLA Rajan Mandloi's question is blunt in its implication. If the Indore sample had already confirmed excessive diethylene glycol in 2023, why were stricter steps not taken quickly enough to prevent the "sad incident" in Chhindwara.
