Someones telling porkies - with Halaal pork sausages

Halaal pork? Not possible. But the Pick n Pay Hypermarket in Ottery‚ Cape Town‚ sold Russians and chips labelled as pork with the halaal logo of the Muslim Judicial Council. A photograph of the sausage's packaging caused a storm on social media among Muslims.The council and Pick n Pay launched an investigation and discovered the product was halaal but the store had erred by using the incorrect label.However‚ it was the council that came under harsh attack on Facebook. One Cape Town user - Muhammad Jihad Abu Ijtihad - wrote: "Who can ever trust them! They might as well take their stamp and use it as toilet paper!" In response to the photograph of the label another user‚ Nazeer Mohamed‚ posted: "Mjc a facade (sic)''.Shaykh Achmat Sedick‚ director of the Muslim Judicial Council's Halal (subs: correct) Trust (MJCHT)‚ moved to allay fears on Tuesday but appealed to the public to verify the facts when faced with such issues before posting it online.He said this was ''wise‚ sound‚ pristine Islamic practice''."There must also be sincere intent and honesty when broadcasting it. Furthermore‚ the Russians in the pic are halal and the supplier thereof is also certified by the MJCHT‚'' he said in a statement.He said the deli was certified by the trust‚ the store manager was a ''prominent Muslim'' and the deli had a Muslim manager.The trust also had a full time monitor at the store and a trust inspector was deployed to the store once a month.Mary-Anne Hattingh‚ Pick n Pay's national customer services manager‚ said they had discovered that the incorrect Local Area Network (LAN) number was used and this resulted in an incorrect label being issued."This LAN number has been totally removed from the printer to prevent this from happening again. We apologise to all our customers for any concern or inconvenience this mistake may have caused. We hope that customers will be reassured by our confirmation that this was a labelling error and the product contained no pork‚'' said Hattingh.