An anti-adulteration mobile court on Saturday fined five business houses and seized a huge quantity of papaya and destroyed 1,500 kilograms of dates at Shyambazar and Waizghat in the Dhaka city.
The mobile court, led by executive magistrate Muhammad Al Amin, also awarded two months’ imprisonment to a fruit wholesaler Russell Enterprise’s manager Jahirul Islam. Later, Jahirul was released on Tk 50,000 bail bond.
The court found bird’s droppings in the dates, which are imported from the United Arab Emirate, most of which were also rotten. The court seized 1,500kg of dates, to dump at the Matuail damping ground.
The City Enterprise and Mamun Enterprise were fined Tk 2 lakh each for ripping green papayas artificially by smoke while Bhai Bhai Enterprise was fined Tk 1 lakh and Badshah Enterprise Tk 25,000 for the same reason.
According to law in the country, to ripe fruits artificially is offensive, the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution officials, who assisted the drive to find out adulterate fruits, told the court.
The environment department chemist, Asadur Rahman, said ripen papaya by smoke is not dangerous for health until chemical are being used to do so.
The papaya businessmen, however, claimed that if the papaya ripped in the tree, it become
difficult to sell it out and make profit from the business.
