Milk of known brand found substandard, discarded

LAHORE
The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) has impounded a milk tanker of a brand owned by a senior police official and discarded milk for being substandard.
When it comes to sealing, confiscating or discarding spurious and adulterated milk of big producers and brands, the Punjab Food Authority (PFA) has always faced criticism from media and society but this is the first time that the authority has taken a courageous step. Resultantly, female officers of the authority are being threatened with dire consequences and they have filed an application with Chuhng police in this regard.
The PFA claims brand’s officers rushed to the spot after the impounding of the truck on the call of the driver and pressured its officials to release the vehicle. The PFA says its team intercepted the milk tanker in the jurisdiction of Chuhng police and asked the driver, who was identified as Abdullah, for inspection. The driver refused to do so and allegedly threatened the PFA team with dire consequences in case it tried to open the tanker. Later he called senior company officials and after some time Project Manager Kashif Jabbar and Tahir came to the spot.
PFA’s lady officer Fariha while talking to the scribe said first both the company officials tried to convince her that the tanker was carrying milk which was not for sale. She said she, however, opened the tanker and took samples which were declared sub-standard during testing on the spot. However, the company officials refused to accept the test results and demanded a report of the Public Analyst on which the team sent samples to the laboratory which also declared that the milk substandard and adulterated.
She said when the PFA team asked the company officials to take the tanker to the PFA office in Gulberg, the driver said the vehicle was out of order and could not be moved. He asked all the people present on the spot to push it. They had just pushed the tanker a little when he sped away and parked the vehicle at some distance. She said they rushed after the tanker and found that the driver, keys and batteries missing.
The PFA team discarded the milk on the spot and toed the tanker to the Chuhng police station with the help of police. She said a case was also registered against the driver, adding the police arrested the driver the next day but he got the bail. She claimed that soon after the bail, she received calls from the driver as well as unknown people who threatened her with dire consequences. She said she had filed an application with the Chuhng police station in this regard. When contacted, company official Tahir, who was also on the spot when the incident had occurred, admitted that the milk was found sub-standard by the public analyst and was discarded. He, however, said that it was a semi-finished product, which was being transferred to one unit from another for internal processing.
Regarding threats, he said no such thing had happened and he and his team fully cooperated with the PFA officials. About the driver’s escape, he said he was not a company employee and ran away for fear of being caught. He said he was brought to the police station the next day by the contractor. He said he didn’t know the driver had called any PFA official and threatened her.
Replying to a question about the company’s quality control process, Tahir said the company had constituted a special quality assurance team to follow the PFA standards and the team was in complete coordination with the senior officials of the authority.