ISLAMABAD: The local administration arrested six workers of a catering firm on Monday for preparing food for the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) dharna activists in unhygienic conditions, but released them the next day on bail.

Official sources said action against the Lal Din Daig House, at the Peshawar Mor, followed when it, and two other PAT caterers, ignored verbal warnings issued by the administration in the early stages of the protest outside the Parliament House.

Eventually Assistant Commissioner Industrial Area retired Capt Shoaib Ali, accompanied by Margalla police, raided and sealed the businesses of Lal Din, Abdullah Catering and Anwar Catering on September 12, the sources said.

While the latter two caterers repented, Lal Din continued to deliver 200 daigs (vats) of food daily to the PAT camping site.

“We had a contract with a Lahore party to supply breakfast and dinner to PAT protesters, beginning August 16,” explained Shahbaz Khan of the Lal Din Daig House to Dawn.

All three caterers cook food in the open space outside their businesses in G-9/4, but the administration raided only the Lal Din business again and arrested its six workers.

Assistant Commissioner Shoaib Ali denied to Dawn that it was discriminatory action. Abdullah Catering, which supplied food to the police force deployed at the dharna sites in the Red Zone, was also sealed, he said.

“They were cooking food in an open area in unhygienic conditions and the quality of food they prepared was very bad,” he said.

While the Abdullah Catering and Anwar Catering signed affidavits to mend their ways but Lal Din did not, said the AC who has magisterial powers.

However, police have booked and charged the six Lal Din workers they arrested under Pakistan Penal Code sections 177 and 188. The first deals with disobedience to an order from a public servant, and the second with disobedience to an order duly promulgated by a public servant.

Lal Din spokesman Shahbaz Khan said that it had rained overnight when the assistant commissioner raided the cooking area on September 12 and found it muddy and sealed the businesses of the three caterers.

“We shifted our cooking to a different place but the rains had left mud all around,” he said.

That led to the second raid and the arrest of six Lal Din workers on Monday. Fortunately, the assistant commissioner set them free the next day on a bond of Rs60,000 each, he said.

Owner of Abdullah Catering Mohammad Shahzad admitted that his business was sealed but would not say why. “We prepare meals on order, including food for 3,000 police personnel,” was all he told Dawn.

Asad Ali, a worker of the Anwar Catering, said the business was sealed on the charge that it was using substandard ingredients but the samples taken for test “proved the claim wrong”.

Asked if his outlet was still supplying food to the PAT protesters, he replied, “we don’t prepare food for them nor have any orders for them. But we serve anyone coming to our outlet”.

Earlier, the capital administration had warned petrol pumps in the city not to sell fuel in cans and bottles to the PAT and PTI protesters camping on Constitution Avenue who used it to generate power.

Some police and administration officials observed that the Petroleum Act and the Pakistan Penal Code provided legal basis for that. But there is no law to ask businesses not to sell or prepare food for anyone.

Published in Dawn, September 25th , 2014