A mobile court of the Gazipur District Administration has fined a children’s food and beverage manufacturing factory Tk80,000 following the discovery of human urine in a bottle on its production floor.
The drive, which also revealed an expired trade licence and improper product packaging, was conducted at Bongo Sea Food located on Bonomala Road in Tongi at around 8pm on Sunday.
The raid was led by Gazipur District Executive Magistrate Md Salehur Rahman.
During the inspection, officials went to the “Mango Fruit Drink” production floor, where they discovered an unmarked, unlabelled bottle lying beneath a machine. Although initially suspected to contain a production-related chemical or liquid, the raiding team subsequently confirmed that the bottle was filled with urine.
While the discovery of urine in a children’s food preparation area embarrassed the visiting officials, the factory management refused to accept responsibility. The authorities claimed that the bottle might have been planted there intentionally, with one official going so far as to accuse a member of the raiding team of placing it there. No evidence was immediately produced to support this allegation.
Further inspections of the facility revealed that the factory’s trade licence had been expired for two months. Moreover, the factory was found to be packaging goods for local domestic markets despite only holding an export licence for those products.
Following the drive, Executive Magistrate Md Salehur Rahman said that the court had inspected the food production environment and other irregularities.
He confirmed that the factory was packaging export-only items for domestic sale, operating with a trade licence expired by two months, and storing a bottle containing urine on the floor where food products are bottled and stored.
Consequently, the establishment was penalised Tk80,000 under the Consumer Rights Protection Act for these proven irregularities.
