A Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Monday fined three grocery shops Tk150,000 for illegal stockpiling of soybean oil and selling them at exorbitant prices in the Jatrabari area of the capital.
An operational team of RAB-3 got secret information through intelligence sources that some grocery traders in the North Jatrabari area have been stockpiling huge quantities of soybean oil and selling the essential edible oil to the general public at Tk34 per litre more than the price fixed by the government.
Later, the elite team conducted a mobile court at North Jatrabari from 11:50am to 1:50pm in the presence of Abdul Jabbar Mandal, assistant director of the Department of Consumer Rights Protection.
During the drive, Executive Magistrate Md Mazaharul Islam fined the owners of Aditi Traders, M/S Sifat Trading and M/S Mintu Store Tk50,000 each.
The mobile court found stocks of 15,000 litres of soybean oil in those shops, said Bina Rani Das, additional SP (Ops and Intelligence wing) of the RAB-3 headquarters.
She added that, during the preliminary interrogation, the owners of the grocery shops admitted their wrongdoing. “The RAB's campaign against these gangs will continue in the future as well.”