Why not Whole Life Imprisonment to rotten meat sellers & suppliers? Image Courtesy – The Free Press Journal
The environmental activist and lawyer, Subhas Dutta, filed a Public Interest Litigation – demanding judicial involvement at the Calcutta High Court. In his words, “West Bengal is a paradise of food adulteration”. We have recently seen that his words are 100% true in respect to ‘food safety and checking’ by government officials.
He has presented some statistics before the court regarding activities of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). His allegations are targeted at the government of West Bengal, which did not take enough care for ‘Food Safety’ and ‘Food Quality’, and ultimately, West Bengal went down in the last position as per the statistical list of FSSAI.
Subhas Dutta gave some statistical examples – in the year 2014-2015, Maharashtra food safety officials tested 6,985 food samples; while at the same time, officials in the West Bengal food safety department tested only 120 food samples. Maharashtra scored with 16.64% for food adulteration, while West Bengal scored with more than 50%.
Read: The danger of Food Adulteration is hovering on our head
Mr Dutta also said that the current penalty for food adulteration in West Bengal was ridiculous. He presented that there was a huge disparity in the penalty prohibition act in West Bengal. In the year 2014-2015, the total fines in Maharashtra were Rs.165 lakh; while for the same period, the total penalty in West Bengal was only Rs.30,000.
The police arrested Biswajit Gharai, owner of a cold storage at ‘Narkeldanga’ in Kolkata, where a huge quantity of rotten meat was recovered in plastic packets.
Image Courtesy – Youtube and ABP Ananda.
Image Courtesy – Youtube and ABP Ananda.
In another raid, Kausar Ali Dhali of Bashirhat escaped from the hands of police much before the police reached his ‘Dhali Chicken Centre’ near NewTown, Rajarhat. The police to date have not yet traced Kausar Ali Dhali. The police suspected that he might have crossed into Bangladesh.
Those incidents might be the tip of the iceberg. There may be more big rackets for ‘food adulteration’ in West Bengal. Those who were caught by the police may face a penalty of Rs.2000 and 6 months imprisonment or something like that.
But the problem is that those found guilty of supplying and selling through several restaurants in West Bengal should be kept aside from society for their whole life. This law is usually implemented in the UK, but now the Indian government must implement it to eradicate ‘food adulteration’ from the country; otherwise, citizens of India will be compelled to swallow poison through their daily food.
