Mobile court raids work magic with Chittagong market, take heat off chilli prices

A mobile court raid in a Chittagong kitchen market on Friday shows such initiatives can work magic with the price spiral of food commodities during Ramadan.

Green Chilli prices at Riaz Uddin Bazar, the central wholesale market of the port-city, dropped to Tk 20 per kg, a third of what it was, in the two-hour raid led by Executive Magistrate Ashraful Alam. 

Deputy Commissioner Mesbah Uddin joined the drive that started at 10am and ended by 11:15am.

They fined three chilli wholesalers a total of Tk 45,000 and sentenced five to prison terms for artificially hiking prices. 

The first wholesaler to be visited by the raiders was M/S Beyzid Store. They were selling chillies at Tk 60 per kg and its seller Md Atahar told magistrate Alam they had to buy the produce at ‘a higher price’ from Bogra.

Alam contacted the wholesaler in Bogra and found out the price there. He then told Atahar to sell them at Tk 30 per kg. 

But at the end of the raid, the magistrate found out the wholeseller did not pay heed and was selling chillies at Tk 50 per kg. 

They then detained Atahar. 

Another wholesaler, Member Banijjaloy, was selling chillies at Tk 45 per kilogramme. 

“Only two days back, they sold chillies at Tk 20-25 per kg. Supply is good too. Just because they want to reap more profits, they are selling them at nearly double the price in a matter of only two days,” Alam told bdnews24.com. 

Proprietor of the outlet, Md Jashim Uddin, was fined Tk 30,000. M/S Mitali Banijjaloy, another wholesaler, was fined Tk 5,000. 

Onions were being sold at Tk 35-45 per kg at the warehouse owned by Ilias Mian Sawdagar. He lowered the price to Tk 30-42 per kg as instructed by the magistrate. 

After joining the raid, the deputy commissioner asked retailers about the price of essentials. ‘Amin’, a retailer, said he brought chillies at Tk 45 per kg and was making a profit of Tk 5 per kg. 

The mobile court then detained Md Jony and ‘Amin’ from Arman Traders and based on information gleaned from them, detained Ratan Chakrabarty, the manager of stocker Selim Banijjaloy. 

Another retailer, Abdul Mannan, told the mobile court that he brought chilli at Tk 44 per kg from wholesaler Peyara Baba Banijjaloy. 

However, the wholesalers initially denied selling to Mannan but then admitted, saying supply was short in the morning because trucks did not arrive in time. 

The DC ordered detention of the manager, Md Rafiq. 

At the end of the drive, Mesbah Uddin told journalists: “In the span of an hour, chillies that were selling at Tk 60 were being sold at Tk 20. 

“The market monitoring drive started and prices went down. This shows they can sell at a lower price.”

He added that traders maintained three books, each different from the other. 

“This is unethical. The difference in prices between retail and wholesale market is huge. Although they are bound by law to display the prices they don’t do it. We will conduct raids all through the Ramadan.”

Executive Magistrate Alam told bdnews24.com: “There are no natural disasters, road links are normal; they are still selling at exorbitant prices to make hefty profits.” 

He added Jony of Arman Traders was given 15-day prison sentence while Atahar, Rony, Amin and Rafiq will serve for seven days. 

‘Shamsuddin’, a regular shopper at the market, told bdnews24.com: “This is how they rip off general people here. It would have been great if such drives happened every day.”