As part of the ongoing drive against adulterated and unhygienic foods in the capital city of Dhaka, four mobile teams on Thursday inspected various spots including sweetmeat factories, bakeries, restaurants, food shops, and fined dishonest traders.

During the daylong raid, the courts visited Gulshan, Chankharpool, Mirpur and Mitford areas, arrested nine persons and awarded fine worth Tk 68,000 in different areas for using harmful ingredients and cheating consumers.

The city’s 98 per cent factories are producing dirty and unhygienic sweetmeat and selling it to city dwellers for long time. The ingredients are dangerous to health, said experts of the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC).

The four mobile teams comprising four magistrates first class, members of the health inspection department of DCC, officials of Bangladesh Standard Testing Institution (BSTI) and member of law enforcers raided different areas and awarded fines Tk 68,000 and filed 18 separate cases against owners or vendors and employees of those factories.

The mobile court-4 led by a magistrate Abdul Fattah raided different business establishments including hotels, confectioneries, sweetmeat factories and awarded fine Tk 31,000 and filed three cases under 23, 24, 39 and 77 sections of the DCC Ordinance in this connection.

Magistrate Fattah along with other members, raided a sweetmeat factory—New Islamia Misthannaya Bhandar—located at 14, South Avenue, Gulshan under Gulshan police station in the city’s most posh area and found that most of the sweetmeats were kept at dirty place in the factory. Many dead flies and insects were found lying on the sweetmeats. He awarded fine Tk 12,000 and filed a case under 23 and 24 sections of the DCC Ordinance against its owner Russel.

The mobile court team fined Tk 9,000 for keeping unhygienic place in the kitchen while visiting a restaurant—Habib hotel—in the area, holding no-134 in Gulshan. Then the mobile court awarded Tk 10,000 against Rupa Confectionery for selling poisonous fast food to buyers that are a great threat to health. During the raid, magistrate found some 60 small packs of illegal mineral water. Magistrate destroyed the illegal drinking water packs, produced by an unauthorised SP (pvt) Company situated in Badda area.

The city dwellers have welcomed the drive against the selling of adulterated foods and members of the civil society including lawyers, doctors, teachers and service holders demanded exemplary punishment to those who are involved in making adulterated foods in hotels.

The mobile court-1 led by Rokon UD Doula raided Haji and Momen Sweetmeat, Mitali, Nirob, Mamun and Ananda hotels located at the city’s Chankharpool area and arrested six persons and fined Tk 17,000 during the operation.

The magistrate arrested Haji Abdul Baten, owner of Haji Sweetmeat for weight cheating and manager of Mitali hotel for unhealthy environment inside the hotel. He destroyed huge quantity of sweets from Momen Sweetmeat for adulteration.

The mobile court-3 led by Rafiqul Islam fined Tk 12,000 and filed six cases, while visiting the city’s Mirpur area under Mirpur police station. He raided Café Mirpur, Grameen Restora, Grameen Kabab Ghar, Café Bismillah and Liton hotel and fined Tk 2000 each.

Meanwhile, the mobile court-2 conducted by Jahangir Alam awarded fine Tk 8,000 and filed six cases in the old city area. The team raided Washing and Mineral water factory and arrested three including owners Eklas Uddin and Azizur Rahman and one employee from there.

In last couple of days several hotels, water factories, sweetmeat factories and other food shops were raided by mobile teams. This is for the first time people found the gulf of gap between their faith and reality when authorities discovered something unbelievable during raid of hotels.

These hotels are fleecing people in one hand by taking higher price for their foods, and on the other, they are producing almost poisonous foods than can caused various kinds of disease including cancer, diabetes, heart diseases, child diseases, skin diseases etc, said a passers by while talking to The News Today.