A tray used to produce vermicelli with a thick layer of burnt scraps that appears to have not been cleaned for weeks, found inside a factory of Bishal Food Industry. Photo: Collected

Old Rajshahi Pharmacy is one of the dozen-odd drugstores in the city that has a steady crowd of buyers, due to its available medicines and reasonable prices.

Similarly, Bishal Food Industries occupies the largest market of packaged food items in the city.

A mobile court drive on Sunday unearthed that these seemingly reputed businesses have illegal practices going on in their back rooms.

Nizamuddin Ahmed, executive magistrate of Rapid Action Battalion headquarters in Dhaka, led the drive with assistance from local members of the elite force.

“When I entered the Old Rajshahi Pharmacy, they showed me their warehouse for storing medicines, and it turned out clean,” Ahmed told The Daily Star. “Later, they confessed of another warehouse where we found most of the illegal medicines”.

The court found illegal medicines worth Tk 2 lakh from the warehouse at Laxmipur area.

Most of the seized medicines were past their expiry date, along with physicians’ samples and government-supplied medicines that are not meant for sale, and foreign food supplements that have no approval for selling in the country.

“A pharmacy owner can return expired medicines to respective companies, but there were medicines at the warehouse from 2013,” the magistrate said.

The owner of the pharmacy was fined Tk 5 lakh and the seized medicines were destroyed as per law, he added.

Contacted, owner of Old Rajshahi Pharmacy Md Shahidullah said they had preserved the date-expired medicines separately.

About the physicians’ samples and government medicines, he said sometimes physicians sell those to them at lower price, and sometimes patients return unused medicines. “Most pharmacies sell these medicines,” he claimed.

The mobile court also fined nine other pharmacies of the city for storing illegal medicines. Zaman, Runa and Al Noor pharmacies were fined Tk 50,000 each; Soso Enterprise, Propical Pharmacy and Motherland Hospital were fined Tk 30,000 each; Royel Pharmacy was fined Tk 20,000; and Dristi Pharmacy and Omi Enterprise were fined Tk 10,000 each.

Later that night, the executive magistrate raided the factory of Bishal Food Industries. The three-storied factory at the city’s BSCIC industrial area was packed with dirt, and none of the employees have essential health certificates of not having any contagious disease, he said.

“For making cakes, the employees were breaking eggs in a bucket that was not cleaned in months,” the executive magistrate said. “The employees were not even bothered as their sweat dripped into the food items.”

“On the roof of the factory, I found chips spread on the floor for drying, under an open sky with bird droppings on it,” he said.

“They were making vermicelli in an unhealthy atmosphere too, and women were kneading the dough with their feet,” Ahmed said, adding that they were mixing toxic chemicals and colours with the food.

The factory owner was fined Tk 6 lakh for not maintaining hygiene under the food security law, and warned that his factory would be sealed if they were found operating in similar unhygienic manner in future, he said.

Contacted, Bishal Food Industries owner Mahbub Alam said, “It is very difficult to make our officials and employees follow the right practices.”

He said they have provided workers with aprons and gloves and they have machines to dry chips, adding that the managers and supervisors are responsible for maintaining a hygienic atmosphere.

“When we are at the factory, the workers follow the rules, but stop using appropriate tools in our absence,” he said.