Lahore: LHC orders review of labs for checking milk

[Naveed Yaseen]

THE Lahore High Court on Tuesday directed an amicus curie (friend of court) to evaluate four leading laboratories of the country to see whether they had the ability to check adulteration of hazardous ingredients in milk.

Justice Mian Saqib Nisar further directed Shahid Karim advocate, the amicus curie, to see which kind of instruments were required to gauge hazardous compounds in packaged and loose milk.

The laboratories which will be checked are: the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Agha Khan Laboratory (Lahore), PCSIR and National Health Laboratory (Islamabad). The judge was hearing a petition against the supply of adulterated milk for human consumption.

The petition was filed by Dr Muhammad Yaqoob Bhatti, Central Executive Member of the Watan Party Pakistan, through his counsel Barrister Zafarullah Khan. The next hearing will be held on May 5.

On Tuesday, Shahid Karim advocate gave the court a suggestion to get the samples of packed and loose milk gauged from India. However, Justice Saqib Nisar disapproved of the suggestion, observing that the court did not want to open a Pandora’s box.

The petitioner’s counsel contended that a very alarming situation was reported by the city district government’s food department which was also published in the national press that 80 per cent milk supplied to the market was poisonous and caused deaths.

He said according to the data, out of 19,718 samples of milk, collected by the food department in the last five years, almost 17,529 were found adulterated. This means that milk consumed by Lahorites was almost 80 per cent adulterated and virtually poisonous, he added.

The counsel relied upon a report published in a section of the press on February 4, 2009, which stated that dairy farms, milk supplying companies and other sources were adding various chemicals and unhygienic materials to milk. Percentage of adulterants included urea or melamine (30 per cent), substandard cooking oil (70 per cent), powdered water chestnuts (Singhara) (40 per cent), unhygienic water (50 per cent), formalin, a chemical used by doctors to preserve bodies (35 per cent), penicillin for enhancing the thickness and fragrance (47 per cent), hair-removing powder (29 per cent), zoonotic pathogens (27 per cent), and other adulterants, including soda bicarbonate, for taste, urea for uniformity and melamine was added as a protein booster, he added.

In this case, the judge had formed a three-member committee, comprising Shahzad Shaukat, Shahid Karim and Dr Mehmood Ali Malik, former principal of the King Edward Medical University.

The committee was assigned the task to collect samples of packaged milk from different areas of the city and send them to laboratory.

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