KOLKATA: Those running the carcass meat industry for a decade had apparently pulled out all the stops to dodge every law of the state. The police have recovered several documents from the cold storage near Rajabazar starting from basic trade licences to authorization to export meat—showing that the accused were aware that to run the business seamlessly, they needed certain “permissions”.
The police will now crosscheck the veracity of the documents. “We have recovered multiple documents, many of which, we are sure, are fake. We are in touch with several government agencies,” said a top Budge Budge police officer. The police have identified a Neplai associate of main accused Sarafat Ali who received the meat consignments from Kolkata at the borders at least twice a week, showing those documents. SP (South 24 Parganas) Koteswar Rao said the probe’s integral part was to “examine if certain documents were genuine”, but refused to elaborate.
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KMC has also started checking the permissions in possession of the accused. It is the government that grants permission to cold storages. The civic buildings department grants the building sanction. A trade licence also comes from the KMC. “We do monitor ice factories but have no say as far as cold storages are concerned. However, given the circumstances, we are keeping an eye on the developments and checking the necessary permissions. We will cooperate with the police whenever required,” said MMiC (health) Atin Ghosh.
The police said that at least two of the accused had provided them with certain leads. “We produced the accused in court on Monday and sent them to five days of police custody. Two of those involved, including the former councillor of Gayeshpur municipality, Manik Mukhopadhyay, told us the accused hoodwinked the authorities, including the civic body, by getting the meat in packages,” claimed the police. “To evade any suspicion, the accused would not get the consignments openly. Instead, the meat would be cut and packed while being ferried. Also, to avoid attention, they transported the consignments by taxis, and not the usual vans.”
Police continued raids across Kolkata—Kasba, Tollygunge, Tangra and Narkeldanga to be precise—besides places in North and South 24 Parganas to find five distributors, while two teams have gone out of the state for further probe. While the state enforcement branch accessed key documents, various municipalities continued to carry out raids on restaurants. The Barasat municipality, led by chairman Sunil Mukherjee and local cops raided three eateries at the busy Chanpadali crossing and sealed one of them after finding stale meat and fish in the freezer. The samples have been sent for test. “Further raids will be carried out,” Mukherjee said.
Even the central government seems to have taken interest in the reports. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has stopped using frozen chicken for meals served on trains and stations from Monday. All licencees have been directed to use only fresh chicken. “While there won’t be any problem at the base kitchens run by our staff, we will monitor the supply chain of licencees to ensure no frozen stock is used. We don’t want to take any chance. For on-board catering, they should only cook just enough for passengers till the trains leave Kolkata and the surrounding areas. More food can be loaded from stations, where such incidents have not been reported,” said Debashis Chandra, group general manager (east), IRCTC.
A cold storage near Razabazar that was recently sealed.