The High Court has banned the sales of pasteurised milk for five weeks as harmful levels of heavy metal such as lead were found in the products distributed by 14 companies.
The bench of Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed and Justice Md Iqbal Kabir passed the order on Sunday.
The ban will particularly affect the sales and distribution of milk products marketed by 14 companies with approvals from Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institutions (BSTI).
The court issued the injunction as all four separate lab reports on pasteurized milk of the 14 registered companies in the market showed presence of harmful substances for human body.
“The High Court has ordered to stop producing, selling, marketing, buying and consumption of pasteurized milk produced by 14 BSTI-approved companies for five weeks. After this order, there is no scope of selling pasteurized milk in the country for five weeks. The court also issued a rule on suo moto in this regard,” Barrister Anik R Haque, who moved a writ in this regard, told journalists.
Earlier on July 24, Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) filed cases against 10 companies after finding harmful metals in the pasteurised milk.
The move came following a High Court order on July 16, which instructed both the BFSA and BSTI to report back to the court on their actions taken against adulteration of milk, curd and cattle feed by July 28.
Food Inspector Kamrul Hasan, who oversees Dhaka South City Corporation areas, filed ten separate cases with Pure Food Court in Nagar Bhaban in the capital on Wednesday last under Section 24 of Food Safety Act 2013. Magistrate Mehedi Pavel took it into the cognizance.
The companies are: Milk Vita, Dairy Fresh, Igloo, Farm Fresh, Aftab Milk, Ultra Milk, Aarong Dairy, Pran Milk, Pura and Tania Dairy and Food Product.
The cases were filed against the errant brands on the basis or test reports conducted Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC), Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR), Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), Plasma Plus, Wafen Research and International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) in line with the HC directive, the BFSA lawyer Barrister Faridul Islam said.
About a month ago, Dhaka University researchers found detergent and antibiotics meant for humans in packaged milks of some of the top brands -- Milk Vita, Pran, Aarong, Igloo and Farm Fresh.
The antibiotics include levofloxacin, ciprofloxacin and azithromycin, which are used mainly to treat bacterial infections in humans.
After the DU researchers published their findings, Kazi Wasi Uddin, additional secretary to the fisheries and livestock ministry, threatened them with legal actions if they failed to publish their study in a peer-reviewed journal.
Prof ABM Faroque, director of Biomedical Research Centre at DU, reconfirmed their findings on the same samples two weeks ago.
Experts say lead in milk may come from cattle feed and contaminated soil, and can affect the liver, kidney and bones.
According to the World Health Organization, any presence of lead, regardless of the level, is considered unsafe for humans as no safe level has been found.
