Crime of breeding fish in sewer lagoons
Monday, 15 September 2008
Fazal Mahmood
THE sewer lagoons where fishes were bred and marketed for consumption of unsuspecting people, who such fishes day after day, were brought under law enforcement measures last year for the first time since this practice started years ago. Some 14 out of some 15 such lagoons were cleared of such hazardous fishes through commendable actions. Incredible though it may be, the reality is that fishes used to be bred in lagoons where raw sewage coming through sewer lines used to be dumped for treatment and disposal later in the rivers.
There is no need to explain how odious this crime had been from the aesthetic sense to breed fishes in human excrement. The crime did finally end up making people eat those fishes carrying germs derived from human bodies such as the germs of hepatitis, Aids, cholera, gastro-intestinal diseases, syphilis, etc., which are usually passed into human excrement. Thus, all classes of people in Dhaka city thanked the government for its decisive effort to bring this particularly atrocious criminality to an end for good. It is surprising how successive governments which claim to be representative of the people, whom they governed, could quite turn a blind eye to rearing of fish in these sewer lagoons. The practice continuing under their very nose, undisturbed, was revealing that they cared nothing about protecting public health. The present government may not be representative in the elected sense but it has had the right instinct of moving fast and hard to stamp out one of the vilest of threats to public health and taste. But even after the comprehensive destructions of the fishes in these lagoons, there is no surety that the crime would not be repeated. Any slackness in or lack of monitoring will lead to again fishes being bred there and sold in markets to infect people and create sicknesses. In fact, some reports surfaced in the media over the last fortnight that fish breeding in the sewer lagoons for selling in the market has restarted.
The evil ones who tasted the profits of the crime will not give up their evil deeds easily. They will shun this evil path if only they are sufficiently discouraged and this should include a thorough investigation to find out who in the WASA facilitated the crime, the fish traders who actually were engaged in the breeding and the local people who assisted them. All three categories of persons should be nabbed and charged without showing the least leniency for the deterrent value of the punishment. Police must be ordered to maintain a presence at or near the lagoons on a regular basis to watch over any further attempts to carry on fish breeding there. And police should be also very strictly asked to do their job incorruptibly without the slightest compromise or slackening of vigil.
It was learnt that local political elements also had a hand in encouraging and protecting the fish breeders. They, too, must be identified and subjected to the rigorous process of the law. The doing of the above would be the minimum needed to prevent on a sustainable basis the passing on of poisonous fishes on the food chain for humans.
THE sewer lagoons where fishes were bred and marketed for consumption of unsuspecting people, who such fishes day after day, were brought under law enforcement measures last year for the first time since this practice started years ago. Some 14 out of some 15 such lagoons were cleared of such hazardous fishes through commendable actions. Incredible though it may be, the reality is that fishes used to be bred in lagoons where raw sewage coming through sewer lines used to be dumped for treatment and disposal later in the rivers.
There is no need to explain how odious this crime had been from the aesthetic sense to breed fishes in human excrement. The crime did finally end up making people eat those fishes carrying germs derived from human bodies such as the germs of hepatitis, Aids, cholera, gastro-intestinal diseases, syphilis, etc., which are usually passed into human excrement. Thus, all classes of people in Dhaka city thanked the government for its decisive effort to bring this particularly atrocious criminality to an end for good. It is surprising how successive governments which claim to be representative of the people, whom they governed, could quite turn a blind eye to rearing of fish in these sewer lagoons. The practice continuing under their very nose, undisturbed, was revealing that they cared nothing about protecting public health. The present government may not be representative in the elected sense but it has had the right instinct of moving fast and hard to stamp out one of the vilest of threats to public health and taste. But even after the comprehensive destructions of the fishes in these lagoons, there is no surety that the crime would not be repeated. Any slackness in or lack of monitoring will lead to again fishes being bred there and sold in markets to infect people and create sicknesses. In fact, some reports surfaced in the media over the last fortnight that fish breeding in the sewer lagoons for selling in the market has restarted.
The evil ones who tasted the profits of the crime will not give up their evil deeds easily. They will shun this evil path if only they are sufficiently discouraged and this should include a thorough investigation to find out who in the WASA facilitated the crime, the fish traders who actually were engaged in the breeding and the local people who assisted them. All three categories of persons should be nabbed and charged without showing the least leniency for the deterrent value of the punishment. Police must be ordered to maintain a presence at or near the lagoons on a regular basis to watch over any further attempts to carry on fish breeding there. And police should be also very strictly asked to do their job incorruptibly without the slightest compromise or slackening of vigil.
It was learnt that local political elements also had a hand in encouraging and protecting the fish breeders. They, too, must be identified and subjected to the rigorous process of the law. The doing of the above would be the minimum needed to prevent on a sustainable basis the passing on of poisonous fishes on the food chain for humans.