A Punjab Food Authority (PFA) team in Lahore was held hostage by the workers of a superstore when the former raided its godown to remove the stocks of expired food items, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Wednesday.

A few days back, a PFA team had seized bottles of imported honey besides other items from a superstore situated on the city’s Ferozepur Road. And when they were sent to a laboratory for the tests, it emerged that they all were expired. 

Following this, the food authority team, led by its director general (DG) Rafaqat Ali Nosowana, carried out a raid at the store’s godown.

The moment the DG came out of the store after completing the operation, the store employees detained remaining members of the PFA team, and held them hostage only to be rescued by the police after six hours.

Police not only freed members of the raiding party from captivity, but also sealed the godown. 

PFA DG told the media that not only the stock of expired food items at the store had been disposed of, but the same had been done at store’s branches in other cities of Punjab. 

The DG said that the store employees put up stiff resistance against the PFA team, and hurled threats at it. “The entire team, including the additional director and the deputy director, was held hostage for six hours,” Nasowana said, adding that even the lights of the godown were turned off during the detention of the food authority’s team.

He made it clear that there was a zero tolerance policy towards the expired and contaminated food items. “We are ready to face any eventuality in order to ensure the provision of quality food stuff to the people as per the vision of Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar,” the PFA DG concluded.

Reporter Rizwan Naqvi