A visit yesterday to Momin sweetmeat, a shop in Nazimuddin Road, is a case in point. The recently formed mobile court raided the shop a couple of days ago, throwing their sweetmeats down the drain and the owner in jail for a month.

Nonetheless, cockroaches could be seen moving on the sweetmeats awaiting sale in a bowl.

When this was pointed out to Sohor Ali, one of the shop's employees, he just removed the cockroaches from the bowl and said it was an unusual incident.

Meanwhile, rotten sweetmeats and sugar syrup were also seen on the first floor of the shop, emitting a foul odor.

"We do not use the color anymore as our owner was sent to jail," said Monju, a shop worker. The sugar syrup was not rotten he claimed, and said, "Just yesterday we made it."

Other unhygienic conditions prevailed. Bags of flour sat just beside the washing corner of the narrow kitchen. Dirty water from the washing corner was dropping into the flour bags, which are used to produce parata, singara, sweetmeat and other flour-made items.

Other restaurants, including Mitali Restaurant, Saimon Hotel and Restaurant, and Sohagh restaurant, have also not improved even after being charged Tk one thousand each on the same day.

"The environment of our restaurant was as good as you see now. Always we ensure the quality," said Mainuddin, manager of the Mitali restaurant, which was fined Tk one thousand for having an unhygienic environment.

He claimed that the kitchen is a little bit dirty due to the heat and smoke of the burner.

Unlike these others, which have continued to operate, the Hatirpul factory of Muslim Sweetmeat has remained closed following the raid.

"All our workers from the factory are in jail. So we are not producing sweets there," said a worker.

But they are still selling colourful sweets like before. "We bring the sweetmeats from our Bijoynagar and Mirpur branches and sell it here," he said.

Muslim Sweetmeat was also fined due to the unhealthy environment in the factory and for mixing rotten sweetmeats with new ones.