Joynal Abdin, executive magistrate of Chittagong City Corporation (CCC), led the mobile court in the port city’s Batali road area near BRTC intersection and fined the firms: Lucky Enterprise and Bismillah Marine Store.
The firms do not have any BSTI licence or approval of the Department of Explosives and Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence to manufacture and sell the devices, according to the court.
The extinguisher makers were also found using BSTI’s monograms on their products although they only have trade licences from the CCC to mix and sell chemical reagents used for making the devices.
Shamsul Alam, owner of Lucky Enterprise, said he has been trading the fire protection devices since 1975 and started refilling the chemical reagents in 1986.
Alam said he has a BSTI licence of selling the devices, but that expired in 2009.
Alam’s firm was found refilling empty jars by mixing chemical reagents in a store room of a three-storey building without taking any preventive measures and without informing the Department of Environment.
While Bismillah Marine Store was found using the garage of a multi-storey building to refill such devices.
Md Nurul Abser, owner of the firm, said he has a class-four passed worker, instead of a regular lab expert, to mix up the chemical reagents — soda acid, ABC powder and dry chemical powder — to produce the devices.
The court ordered both the firms to stop refilling and selling the devices and to establish separate safe rooms to mix up the reagents and appoint lab technicians.
Two teams of BSTI and Chittagong Metropolitan Police assisted the court.
Meanwhile, three mobile courts are scheduled to conduct such fire safety drives in all sorts of businesses in Chittagong today, on December 11 and 24. The officials of Agrabad Fire Service and Civil Defence headquarters will assist the courts.
Source: The Daily Star
