73,000 liters of edible oil seized in Khulna

A mobile court in Khulna has recovered 73,000 liters of edible oil from three trading companies in the city. The establishments have been fined for hoarding.

A joint team of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and district administration conducted an operation in the Borobazar area of Khulna on Thursday (12 May).

The operation was led by Khulna District Administration Executive Magistrate Debashish Basak.

"A total of 73,000 liters of oil was found from three traders. They have been fined one lakh 60 thousand takas," said Executive Magistrate Debashish Basak.

"31.06 metric tonnes of soybean and 63.30 metric tonnes of palm oil were found in Saha Traders during the operation. Dilip Kumar Saha, the owner of the company, has been fined Tk30,000 for this," he added.

Sonali Enterprise was found to be hoarding 26.78 metric tons of soybeans and 31.80 metric tons of palm oil. Pradip Saha, the owner of the company, was fined Tk90,000, the district administration said. It also said that 9.58 metric tons of soybean and 59.56 metric tons of palm oil were found in Ranjit Biswas & Sons. Ajit Biswas, the owner of the company, has been fined Tk40,000.

Along with the fines, the traders have been instructed to sell the oils at government-mandated prices within the next three days.

Hundreds of thousands of litres of hoarded edible oil are coming out of the warehouses of traders in raids across the country although the essential cooking item remained out of the market for the last several days.

The government has been conducting raids against hoarders to avoid an artificial crisis for edible oil in the country.