GUWAHATI: A team from the Assam food safety department conducted an early morning drive in a fruit market at Fancy Bazar here and destroyed 51 quintals of carbide-ripened mangoes.
“As many as 36 quintals of carbide-ripened mangoes were seized from two traders from West Bengal, Niranjan Roy and Sheikh Nurul Islam. They were handed over to Fancy Bazar police outpost,” Tarun Das, senior food safety officer, Kamrup Metro, told The Shillong Times on Tuesday evening.
The mangoes, worth about Rs 4500 per quintal, were brought from Siliguri.
“Besides, 15 quintals of such mangoes were recovered a truck. The woman who had brought the mangoes from Cooch Behar is absconding. All the mangoes have been destroyed,” Das said.
The drive against carbide-laced mangoes, which resumed after a three day break, will be continued in the markets, as unscrupulous traders take short cuts to ripen mangoes by putting calcium carbide inside packets in cartons.
Mangoes and other fruit are flooding the markets in the city and this being the month of Ramzan, customers flock to the markets to buy them.
The team also conducted a drive against adulterated milk in the Khanapara area in the afternoon.
“Four samples collected were sent to the laboratory for tests, Twelve other milk samples were tested by our mobile lab, Food Safety on Wheels, of which two were found to have contained excess water while the rest were ascertained as standard samples,” he said.
