Harder penalties for adulteration

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Mobile courts are not liked by the offenders. But to them the penalties are no more than small pinches. As the penalties do not hurt them they continue with the wrong practices to sell substandard or adulterated food and other products to maximise profits.

Only harder penalties would force them to change their ways. The laws applied by the mobile courts are too weak to discourage the adulterers to change their ways. The paltry amounts of fines are disproportionately inadequate compared to the enormous profits they make from their criminal practices. Only the burden of heavier fines is likely to act as disincentive to mend their ways.

Not only fines, other harder penalties are required. The provisions of imprisonment too can be avoided in lieu of paying additional fines, which the offenders find easy as well. A minimum penalty of at least three or four years of rigorous imprisonment for adulteration could act as an effective deterrent. The law, therefore, needs to be changed. The offenders enjoying cushy life would not want to go to jail. The fear of jail sentences would also force them to rectify their way.

Firoz Mahmud

Indira Road, Dhaka.