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health hazards. The health hazards can result from either addition of deleterious substances or remov-al of a vital component (4). Some adulterants may even lead to death (1,3). Most of the food items collected from the respond-ents ’ residents were found adulterated in a study conducted in Haryana, India, and the main adul-terants in food samples included water in milk, chalk powder in turmeric powder or sugar, artifi-cial colour in chili powder, water-soluble colour in green and black gram, artificial colour in chickpea flour, and essential oil removed from cardamom (5). More than half of the food samples tested dur-ing 2002 at the Institute of Public Health in Dhaka were adulterated; among the samples tested, 100% samples of butter oil and banaspati dalda, 90 % con-densed milk/sweetmeats, 72.3 % ghee and honey, and 57.2 % cow’s milk were adulterated (6). Dur-ing 2002-2003, Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institute (BSTI) had 250 surveillance team/mobile courts that collected 226 food samples from open market for testing, issued 117 show-cause notices to manufacturers for substandard products, can-celled 45 trade licenses, and undertook 35 legal actions (7). The mobile court raids against food adulteration intensified in 2005 when electroni