Only relentless and sweeping drives by mobile courts will deliver

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Enayet Rasul
Magistrate Rokanadowla has been making headlines with actions such as detecting mangoes sprayed with calcium carbide for artificial ripening and killing fishes bred in sewer lagoons. But are these on and off actions, here and there, now and then, striking enough fears in the minds of the offenders that they are at risk every moment for being found out and that they must give up their ways because the penalties they would have to otherwise suffer would be very great ?
Clearly, no such fear is presently sweeping the minds of the adulterers of food products and similar adulterers of other consumption goods. Most of them have a rather casual feeling hoping and thinking that only a few out of their vast number are facing some actions and that they can go on with their ill activities probably without ever getting detected. Thus, the piece-meal and disparate actions of the mobile squads are hardy creating the sort of wide impact necessary in the backdrop of the enormity or pervasiveness of the crimes. Furthermore, the public feeling is also that the mobile courts are not hitting the hardest where they should such as in areas that affect mass consumption of food with adverse effects on the greatest number of people.
The press carried reports about the fining of offenders by the mobile courts. The fines were paid off promptly but the offences continued in much the same fashion . This was proved by the repeated fining of the shops. The fining of one such shop should have alerted all and led to the taking of corrective measures by the owners of most other such shops. But this did not happen. This is because the first such offender didn't care as the amount of fine was very bearable for him. It was perhaps no more than a small part of the profit he perhaps made from the daily or weekly sale of adulterated foods.
The mobile courts and their operations are not liked by the offenders , of course. But the penalties are found to be trivial by them, no more than small pinches on their sides they can ignore whereas giving up of their present mode of food production and settling for healthy and safe methods would mean a reduction of their profits. So, they are all for continuing with their present ways, quite undeterred and very stubbornly.
Only certain developments in the application of the law could help twist their arms strongly enough to force them to reconsider their ways. The laws that the mobile courts are applying are too weak to create any strong motivation among the adulterers to change their ways for the better. The fines are paltry amounts to them in contrast to the enormous profits they are currently making from their crimes. Only if the fines become truly heavier such as not in thousands but in millions of taka, the burden of paying them is very likely to create for the fist time the disincentive among them to rethink and mend their ways. Not only fines, other severe penalties need to be introduced. The current provisions of suffering only months in jail and that too to be avoided in lieu of paying fines, are found to be no real hardships by the offenders. If the laws are changed to provide, say, the minimum penalty of at least seven years of rigorous imprisonment for any sort of adulteration activity, then the same is likely to create enough disincentive . The offenders, generally , are expected to yearn for a cushy life and would not want to go to jail. Even if they have to face jail sentences, they would surely not like to suffer long imprisonment working all the while with the common criminals. The visions of such a life are unthinkable to the offenders in many cases who always had it so easy.
The government may say that the parliament is not in session and, therefore, they are in no position to pass tough laws to back up the activities of the mobile courts. But is that any problem ? It is always possible to make contingent laws through Presidential ordinances when the parliament is not sitting. Government can make the laws tougher by promulgating such ordinances and these can be subsequently approved by the parliament when it comes into session. There is, of course a point that laws made by ordinances in a parliamentary democracy are not ordinarily preferred because the same look like fiats in the absence of the traditions of their introduction in parliament, the usual debates and so on and so forth. But when the issues are of very vital public interest, then laws through ordinances are welcomed even in mature democracies. So, what is the problem in Bangladesh in doing the same when the people are so keen to have the laws toughened up against those who are serving them poison in the name of foods and selling substandard non food products ?
The other worry is about the targets of the mobile courts. Should not the courts go also after adulteration activities that affect public health on a large scale ? The activities of the mobile court in Dhaka, for instance, were seen mainly in respect of Chinese restaurants, fast food outlets and the like. But these are visited mainly by middle class people and the rich. The far bigger number in the city's population go to the road side food shops and common restaurants with tatty appearances. What things are served there as food and in what conditions would have severely shocked the mobile court members perhaps if they cared to visit them. The users of such lower grade pavement food shops and so called restaurants are rickshawpullers, lowest grade employees of government services and private organisations, day labourers, etc. They go to these places because they cannot afford to eat at restaurants and the like used by people who enjoy substantially higher income. But what are these people eating who are the greatest in number in the city ? It could be found on inspection that quality of the foods and the environs in which these are served are worse in these eateries in the lower rung. So, the mobile courts need to crackdown on these food servers as well with the same enthusiasm it has been going after Chinese hotels and elegant restaurants.
Then foods such as puffed rice (muri) are eaten regularly by people at the grass roots. But muri these days is dried and made shiny by frying the same with urea. Formalin is injected into fishes to create an artificial fresh appearance. Fruits like bananas and jackfruits are similarly injected poisonous chemicals to ripen them in haste before their natural ripening time. But such fruits, fishes and muri with carcinogenic properties put into them are being consumed on a large scale by ordinary people as these are the common and non expensive foods they can afford to buy. The mobile courts ought to step up their vigilance in relation to these foods which are mass consumed by common people.
And not only food-stuffs, the drives by the mobile courts need to cover extensively the whole country. The drives should be unrelenting and ought to include all major non food consumption items. Even fuels oils are adulterated on a large scale and medicines. Only countrywide non stop drives against different essential consumption goods will start producing the sort of results that consumers want.