A Dhaka food court has recently issued an arrest warrant against content creator Iftikhar Rafsan, also known as Rafsan the ChotoBhai, on charges of unauthorised production, marketing and sale of electrolyte drinks named ‘BLU’.
Judge Alaul Akbar passed the order on June 4, following a case filed by the Dhaka South City Corporation food safety inspector Kamrul Hasan on the same day.Â
The DSCC public relations officer Abu Naser confirmed the matter on Thursday.
Earlier on April 24, the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution fined the DrinkBlu Beverage Tk 30,000 for selling the electrolyte drink without product packaging certificate.
On 7 December in the past year, Rafsan, the owner of DrinkBlu Beverage factory, announced the launch of the electrolyte drink.Â
On May 14, the court issued arrest warrants against top bosses and officials of five companies, including the ACME Agrovet and Beverages Ltd, Pran Dairy Ltd, and Akij Food and Beverage Limited, on charges of unauthorised production, marketing and sale of electrolyte drinks.
The court imposed fines Tk 16 lakh on SMC Enterprise Ltd owner Waliul Islam on May 16, Tk 16 lakh on ACME Agrovet and Beverages Ltd owner Tanveer Sinha and Tk 12 lakh on Deshbandhu Food and Beverage Ltd chair Golam Mostafa on May 19.
The Akij Food and Beverage Limited chairperson Sheikh Shamim Uddin was fined Tk 4 lakh on May 21 and Pran Dairy Ltd chairperson and chief executive officer Ahsan Khan Chowdhury Tk 10 lakh on May 23.
On May 20, the court directed the Food Safety Authority to take all SMC Plus electrolyte drinks off the market and consumers. No such directive, however, was given for other products that faced the lawsuit.
Other officials facing warrants for arrest are Sarajit Baral, chief executive officer of Agami Limited, Deshbandhu’s marketing and selling partner; and Md Touhidul Islam, factory in-charge of Brüvana Beverage Limited, which
produces mango-flavoured Bruvana Sports+ Electrolyte Beverage.
Besides the drinks of six brands facing legal proceedings, many other products, including Spark and state-owned Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory Ltd produced BMTF, are available on the market in the absence of oversight.
Imported electrolyte drinks, including orange and apple-flavoured ‘Taaqa Electrolyte Juice’ with BSTI logo are also available in the market.