MUZAFFARGARH: Agriculture Department’s extension and pest warning officials confiscated fake pesticides and agricultural inputs worth of Rs15 million from a factory and arrested three suspects at Adda Wazirabad, Multan, on Tuesday.

The high-profile raid was carried out by South Punjab Deputy Agriculture Secretary Asif Raza, assistant directors Shahid Hussain and Allah Rakha and Agriculture Officer Dr Wali Muhammad with police.

The team recovered fake DAP bags, green cane and hundreds of sacks of Nitrophos and other materials during the operation.

Apart from this, packages of more than 15 national and multinational companies were confiscated. The Basti Malook police arrested Mukhtar Ahmed, Mohammad Sajid and Sajjad in a case registered under the Pesticides Ordinance and Fertiliser Controller Order.

The seized labels contained false information about the importer, manufacturer, formulator, distributor, date of manufacture, date of expiry, batch number, registration number and packer.

The department said the suspects were causing irreparable damage to the country’s economy by illegally packing and formulating fake fertilizers and poisons and supplying them to different parts of the country. For further legal action, material samples were obtained and sent to laboratories for analysis.

Mr Raza said the Agriculture Department is following the principle of a zero-tolerance policy against those dealing in fake agricultural poisons and all possible actions are being taken to eradicate this business.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2022