In September 2024, the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir was awarded 3rd position by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in the Food Safety Index 2023-24 for performance in implementation of FSS Act, 2006. And today, chilling news is coming from all corners of Kashmir about the poison that is being fed to people in the name of food. Rotten meat is being found in tons dumped here and there as the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) launched the campaign to check the food quality all over Kashmir. Earlier in the week, a referral lab in Ghaziabad, after testing many snacks lifted from the markets of Kashmir, found that unsafe and dangerous colours had been used in them. The non-permitted food colours, that are being used in different foods here include Carmisine, Tartrazine, and Erythrosine. All these are known to cause serious health conditions in humans.
Now that fortunately the concerned agency has found such food items and thus launched a massive crackdown, people hope that this dirty business is put to an end. It is common place knowledge that adulteration of edibles is a norm here, the agencies vested with the job of taking action against the greedy businesses and people associated, are desperately found wanting both in their will as well as wherewithal to deal with the problem. People still are apprehensive as no details are being shared with them about those involved in this dirty trade of rotten meat. It sounds like routine checks wherein officials inform public that their so-called checking squads have raided market-places and procured food samples for lab analyses to check them for adulteration if any. Thereafter, never ever are people informed about any subsequent action, not to mention of anyone being chargesheeted for adulteration!
While appreciating the recent crackdown against rotten meat and poultry, the concerned agencies should also gear up to check other food items like milk and spices which are every day used in every household. As per the doctors, presence of a simple chemical ‘oxytocin’ – although a banned drug, but which is usually given to cattle to increase their lactation, seeps easily into the human body through milk that people consume. There it could easily translate into hormonal imbalances, resulting in miscarriage among pregnant women, as well as eye and other problems among the newborns. It also leads to certain heart and neurological complications. Here it is not only the oxytocin, but even dangerous detergents and urea have been found in milk samples, and industrial dyes and synthetic colours and a whole lot of other dangerous chemicals have been found in so many other edibles, but no substantive action against the adulterers has come about from the concerned agencies. Just announcing that so many quintals of rotten meat were recovered is not the solution to the problem. People need to know wherefrom this meat had come and where it was supposed to be sold. The people involved in this trade should ne named and shamed. They should be booked under Public Safety Act as they are poisoning the masses here.