CHITRAL: Ever since the advent of spuriousness and and adulteration in Pakistan, Chitral has been a flourishing market for the defiled and impure stuff. Owing to the general level of poverty, the shopkeepers buy substandard, adulterated and spurious merchandise from the markets specialising in such stuff in Batkhela, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Lahore etc at low rates and mostly on credit and then sell them in Chitral at high prices, thus pocketing their windfall but damaging the health of the helpless population.

There is no mechanism with the government to check the production and sale of spurious merchandise and no moral teachings by clerics to stop doing such things. The search for a genuine stuff whether it be eatable, cosmetic or medicine is a difficult job in Chitral. Even fake, spurious milk is being sold in the market with impunity.

Children of Chitral who are beautiful by natures gift of such genes are being badly affected in particular. The rosy cheeks are fading away to adulterated, substandard foodstuff including artificial plastic based snacks.

It may be impossible for the government to check the evil of spuriousness, but merchants with scruples and morals can come up and present genuine merchandise to at least counter the menace to some extent. ..CN report, 19 Sep 2021