Action against cheats, fraud and spurious products
Action against cheats, fraud and spurious products
Haseeb Baloch
Editor's Blog

QUETTA: There was a report in our news columns that the FIA had raided a hideout and found a factory preparing fictitious syrup of a branded name of Jam-e-Shireen in Quetta. The premise was sealed and the culprits arrested in a raid by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

QUETTA: There was a report in our news columns that the FIA had raided a hideout and found a factory preparing fictitious syrup of a branded name of Jam-e-Shireen in Quetta. The premise was sealed and the culprits arrested in a raid by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

The raid was conducted on the orders from the Director-General FIA who received a complaint from the company that the fictitious brand of the syrup is being produced in Quetta. Presumably, the company specified the place where the fake product is prepared.

If the DG FIA had not directed the concerned officer, then the cheat would have continued the illicit business and seriously endangered the life of the innocent buyers and consumers considering it cheap and affordable.

The FIA, Balochistan Police under the leadership of the local administration should also carry out raids on all such suspected places where spurious medicine, fictitious products, mainly cooking oil, ghee and other eatables are being prepared.

Quetta is considered the biggest home of unsafe food in the province. There is no constant campaign to wipe out the criminals involved in adulteration and selling the fictitious products during the holy month of Ramazan.

The Chief Secretary should take a serious notice to this growing complaint from the common people that fictitious products had flooded market and they are being sold openly with complete impunity. There should be a constant and regular campaign so that the menace is eliminated completed first from the Provincial Capital and later on from the entire province.

The food and eatables on the public sale should be pure and unadulterated with no place for fictitious and fake products of the brand names from all over Pakistan during the month of Ramazan.

The campaign should be launched by the Balochistan Police, accompanied by Magistrates, raiding all the suspected places and checking the quality of products in shops and market places in Quetta and elsewhere in Balochistan.

Most of the brand of cooking oil, ghee should be checked in all the shops and markets ensuring that they are fake products prepared in hide-outs of criminals in Quetta and its surroundings.

The main motive for selling spurious products is higher profit for the shop-keepers and the profit in normal time is more than 60 per cent for keeping the illicit products at their outlets. If they are caught buying spurious products from the agents and not the verified dealers, then the shop-keepers should not be spared and they should be punished and their shops sealed forever and he given long prison terms.

If the people were found involved in the illicit business, then they should be caught and prosecuted and the subordinate judiciary should punish them severely. The superior judiciary should monitor the conduct and role of the subordinate judiciary doing justice to the criminals involved in playing with the life of the consumers.

The people are keeping a close watch on the performance of drug court where cases of spurious drugs, sub-standard medicine and operating medical stores without a valid licence. There should be no mercy for those criminals involved in spurious drug business one way or the other. The punishment should be severe discouraging others joining the illicit trade harmful for the whole society.

The Government under Zafarullah Jamali did disservice to the people by handing over powers to the FIA and barring the local police from raiding shops and other outlets selling spurious products. Presumably under the powerful advise of the corrupt bureaucracy the laws was enacted barring the local police from conducting raids finding spurious products, both eatables and medicine.

However, the Deputy Commissioner, Quetta, should be asked to supervise the campaign against spurious products, including medicine and food items eliminating the menace once for all. The common and highly responsible citizens of Quetta should come to the help of the district administration in eliminating the menace once for all.

The major companies and factories should ensure that they are offering quality products to the people and they are responsible for the health of the common people. It is the right of an ordinary citizen to take their sample to a lab test and if found harmful for human consumption, the factory should be closed and the owners given prolong prison sentence under the pressure of the people.

The civil society should also guard on the interests of the common and poor people disallowing the sale of sub-standard products injurious to human health.