IMPHAL, Jun 17: Eight different civil society organi-sations have formed a body to check food adulteration and sale of intoxicants in the State today.
During a joint meeting held at Keishampat near Yumsha Chicken, the body christened Kangleipak Consumer Affairs Association (KACOA) was constituted by International Peace and Social Advancement (IPSA), ACOAM-Lup, Indigenous People’s Association of Kangleipak (IPAK), PANDAM, Chanura Lamchinglen Kangleipak (CLK), Kangleipak Lamjing Apunba Meiralup (Kanglamei), Kanglei Ima Lup (KIL) and Kangleipak Students Association (KSA).
ACOAM-Lup working president Chandramani Khumancha said that L Ratan has been elected as the convenor, Th Krishnakumar as the co-convenor (food adulteration), Siram Hemjit as co-convenor (FMCG), U Bentosh as co-convenor (anti-tobacco and narcotics), H Binod as coordinator (food safety department), H Sanaton as assistant co-convenor.
He further said that two new assistant co-convenors would also be inducted soon.
KSA general secretary Bidyananda Sukham said that they are extremely concerned with the recent instance of shielding food adulterators by the Government.
He lamented the student activists who pulled up these food adulterators were sent to the jail.
On April 15, 2016, volunteers of IPSA and KSA pulled up a non-local for adulterating tea leaves, he said.
Although, police allegedly tried to cover up the wrongdoing of the non-local, he was penalised by the authority concerned due to media attention and uproar of the locals. In another recent case, KSA volunteers pulled up two non-locals for allegedly adulterating common salt, Bidyananda said.
However, police arrested five KSA executives and sent them to jail although the culprits were freed, he said.
Bidyananda said that KSA would extend co-operation to civil society organisations’ vigil towards food adulteration and sale and intoxicants. He opined that blindly taking orders from their political bosses by the police would greatly hamper police-public relationship. Saying that police department had been instituted to protect the common people, Bidyananda said that police need to avoid nepotism and stand for the truth.
He said that the objective of the newly formed body is to check food adulteration which is hazardous to public health and control price rise and sale of intoxicants.
