The Punjab Food Authority (PFA)recovered 80,000 kg worth of rotten chocolate in a raid at a local warehouse on Thursday.
The authorities recovered two vehicles stuffed with expired edibles, set to be dispatched to Faisalabad and Lahore. The persons involved allegedly repack the sweets after utilizing chemical compounds to take away fungus from them.
Earlier, on Jan 14, the Punjab Food Authority had sealed four food points and penalised two others while issued warning notices to five units over violation of the rules of the PFA Act.
In a recent October 2019 raid, approximately 5,000 litres of chemically contaminated milk were discovered in a tanker vehicle. PFA Director General Captain, Muhammad Usman, said that milk was being supplied to the Liaqat Milk Shop in the city of Lahore, but the PFA reportedly foiled the supply attempt by taking timely action against the milk carrier vehicle.
Notably, PFA recovered more than 100,000 liters of adulterated milk over the period of just one week. However, the raids were often met with violent responses with three members of PFA being seriously injured in a shooting during a conducted raid against milk adulterates in Sahiwal.
According to the PFA, another attack occurred in September 2019 when they raided a unit suspect of producing adulterated milk and milk powder. A group attacked the food safety team with weapons, and took a PFA member hostage, reportedly subjecting them to “continuous beating and slapping”. Police intervened and the hostage was released, but the owner of the unit, Dr Khalid, fled the scene.
