Once the group, comprising of a magistrate, BSTI official, police officials and journalists are ready, they set out on their mission to curb the ongoing crimes of food adulteration and products of other basic needs.

This correspondent accompanied two mobile court teams during one of the recent drives last week.

Magistrate Rokon-Ud-Doula led a team to seize Shamsul Haque's illegal production of adulterated fertiliser alleged by some farmers from Kotechandpur in 322, West Jurain of the city on April 25.

Naturally Shamsul Haque looked very surprised to see the inspection team especially since very few are aware of such raids before they take place.

Haque was running a factory in a tin shed called M S Chemical Company, with two rooms producing five types of adulterated fertiliser, which, upon application, causes plants to die and diminish soil fertility.

When quizzed by the team, Haque immediately said that the owner was not present and he knows nothing about the adulteration. But after going through the papers, the mobile team found that he was the owner of the factory.

The workers were seen putting packets of fertilisers into boxes to be shipped in various parts of the country.

Haque admitted that he does not have any academic qualifications relating to chemicals or fertiliser manufacturing.

The mobile court took samples of fertilisers to test whether they are adulterated or not. Meanwhile, BSTI officials found that one of his products called 'New Fish Grow' is a BSTI tested product although the officials had no clue about it. When Haque was asked for showing relevant documents, he couldn't.

Shamsul Haque was fined Tk 20,000, for using the BSTI seal illegally, and if unable to pay the fine it would cost him six months of prison time.

All products were confiscated, and if more adulteration were found on testing, a new case will be filed against Haque, said Rokon-Ud-Doula.

On April 27 another mobile court drive led by magistrate Tapan Kumar Biswas took place at Fu-Wang Foods in Tejgaon-Gulshan link road. This was the third raid at the factory since the drive began in July 2005.

The court found the same unhygienic atmosphere where workers were preparing bakery items without gloves. When asked by the mobile team why they were working in bare hands, the workers could not give any answer.

At the same time, it also found plenty of sauce packets with no BSTI seal on them. The court slapped the Fu-Wang factory production manager a fine of Tk one lakh.

The same mobile court then moved to the Polar ice-cream factory in the same area and fined production manager Jasimuddin Ahmed Tk 70,000 for stocking glucose monohydrate, that expired in January. This was also the third raid in the factory since July last year.

The sacks of glucose were stone hard. In addition, 15 bags of colourful chewing gum to be used in ice cream had no labels stating the country of origin or expiry date.

The mango pulp stored in tin cans had only a month left for expiry, but factory workers said the ice-cream made from this pulp would be falsely labelled an expiry date of one whole year.

When asked why such bulk quantities of raw materials were stored, the factory manager said they were going to destroy them any day.

Meanwhile other ice-cream products stored in jumbo mango ice-cream cups had no address on their labels.

The journalists accompanying the team found the amount Tk 70,000 fined for expired items and holding unidentified raw materials very surprising, since the same mobile court's BSTI official fined the previous organisation more for preparing food items without wearing gloves.

As these mobile courts were going about their mission, a number of enthusiastic spectators raised important concerns.

Despite the mobile court frenzy in town as well as the brow-raising amount of fines, the fact that adulterated products are still being produced is bizarre indeed.

Are these drives really helping curb crime against food adulteration? People wonder!