KOLKATA: A night-long raid at an ice factory in

starting late on Wednesday yielded as much as 20 tonnes of

, packed and ready to be sold. The raid, a week after police arrested three people on the charge of carrying carcass meat, proves something that law-enforcement agencies had long suspected: carcass-meat is not a one-off affair; it’s a well organised industry, much bigger than previously thought.

Nine people have been arrested so far, including the three last week. According to the cops, the trio claimed the carcass meat was mostly of stray dogs and cats. KMC has, however, advised caution and scientific tests before drawing any conclusion.

Packed neatly in 1,000 packets, each weighing 20kg, the carcass meat, allegedly mixed with fresh meat, was sold to hotels and restaurants after being treated with chemicals at -44 °C for four to five days.

MMiC Atin Ghosh said they were in touch with

to test the meat. The Budge Budge police, which is handling the probe, is also getting the meat tested independently. Experts, however, feel a very accurate detection would prove difficult, given that fresh meat was mixed with carcass meat.

Three people were picked up from the Rajabazar factory itself. Two more were nabbed after raids across Tangra, Narkeldanga, Jagaddal and Kakinara. The kingpin — Sunny Malik — was picked up from Nawada in Bihar after help from the local police.

“We have arrested Malik based on a tip-off from those we had nabbed earlier,” said Koteswar Rao, the South 24 Parganas SP. “During initial questioning, the accused revealed the carcasses were picked up from the dumpyards of Budge Budge, Sonarpur and even Kalyani. Supplies from other dumping grounds within a 50km radius of Kolkata cannot be ruled out,” he added.

According to police sources, the accused kept informers at each dumping yard in and around greater Kolkata, preferably municipal staffers, who tipped Malik about any carcass being dumped in the yard. For each tip-off, the informers fetched Rs 100. Within hours, a team would take either a van or a taxi to the spot.

They always carried ice with them. After cutting off the meat, it would be brought to the Rajabazar cold storage, where the meat was further extracted and chemically processed at -44 °C for five days. The cops said the layer of fat was removed to decrease decay. A white powdery chemical was used to treat the meat, said a source. The chemical has also been sent for tests.

The frozen meat would then be packed in small packets along with fresh meat, with local company names printed on top, and sold to restaurants. Worse, sometimes fake labels of reputable companies used to be printed on the packets and sold in the local market. “These would be consumed as sausages, meatballs, ham and salami,” an investigator claimed.

The carcass-meat industry had grown both in size and profit in the last four years under Malik. “There are several layers to this fraud and criminal conspiracy, and a thorough time-consuming probe will be required,” said a senior investigating officer.

The stunning findings, though, began with a stroke of luck. On April 19, some residents of Subhas Udyan area in Budge Budge (28km from Kolkata) caught Raja Mullick, a casual worker of the local municipality and

, a taxi driver, while some meat and animal parts were being smuggled out in the taxi.

Local people alleged that meat retrieved from dead animals was being regularly supplied to hotels and restaurants in Kolkata. This immediately triggered panic and rumour, prompting the police to initiate a probe. Carcasses of all kinds of animals, including cow, pig and dog, are usually dumped at this ground. “It was the questioning of these two men that helped us nab Malik and others after repeated raids around Sealdah and Rajabazar,” said a police source.