KOLKATA: Carcasses of a cow and two dogs lay in a shallow pit right in the middle of the dumpyard at Budge Budge. With the onset of rigor mortis, the bodies, dumped on their back, had turned rigid. A committee of vultures kept swooping down to drive away the dogs trying to dig their teeth into the fast-rotting meat. The scavenging birds then ploughed their beaks into the skin of the dead animals.Dumpyards, where solid waste and animal carcasses are thrown away, are not meant to be sanitised, but it surely sends achill down the spine at the thought that such decomposed meat from this very yard has been making its way to our plates, thanks to some unscrupulous traders, corrupt officials and lax administration.Spread over several acres of land and within a few hundred metres of the Budge Budge police station as well as the municipality, the dumpyard portrays a horrifying picture of death and decay. An unbearable stench of rotten meat hits the nose as one turns left into Mullickpara from Budge Budge Trunk Road . The narrow, serpentine road, flanked by warehouses, garages and pice hotels, is enveloped in dense smog. The closer one gets to the yard the more difficult it gets to breathe. “Waste collected from the entire municipality area is dumped here. Carcasses of animals, like dogs, pigs and cattle, are abandoned here,” said a Budge Budge municipality official.Even residents of the area are shocked at the news the carcass meat from this dumping ground was being mixed with fresh meat and sent to processing units as well as supplied to eateries. “Around five carcasses are dumped here every day. We always thought the bodies were buried to arrest the spread of any disease. But we were shocked when we heard meat of these animals was sold in markets,” said a resident of Mullickpara in Ward19.A night-long raid on an ice factory at Rajabazar on Wednesday yielded 20 tonnes of carcass meat. The raid came a week after three persons were arrested on the charge of ferrying meat from the Budge Budge dumping ground to the city. Investigations revealed that apart from meat processing units where hams and sausages were made, several eateries bought these consignments.Urchins and garbage collectors at the yard said they had seen people skinning the carcasses and then, loading the meat in vans. “There is no facility of burying the bodies here. Once the carcasses are dumped in the open pits, some people haul them out, skin them and load the meat in vans. We have never tried to raise any question because they may harm us,” said a woman, rummaging through the waste. Urchins running around pointed out that even ashes from crematoriums in the area were abandoned there, as the Budge Budge municipality did not allow the remains to be thrown into waterbodies.