A crackdown carried out by the West Bengal police has blown the lid off a racket that used to supply sell carcass meat in the Bengal and its surrounding states. One of the several people arrested in connection with the case is a Communist Party of India (CPI-M) leader.

The police meanwhile seized 20 tons – 20,000 kg – of meat one day. Several kilos of rotting chicken meat was seized the next day.

Similar meat had reportedly been supplied within India and abroad to restaurants. These eateries apparently cooked and served them to unsuspecting customers.

Also read: Indian cop demands pizza and chilli chicken from complainant, suspended

Crackdown on rotting carcass meat

Complaints of rotting carcass meat being sold to restaurants first surfaced in March. As more and more reports came to light, the police raided a privately-owned cold storage in the Narkeldanga area of Kolkata on Thursday, April 26, and seized 1,000 packets of carcass meat.

A day later, more such meat was seized in the New Town area near Kolkata.

According to local reports, the meat came from rotting carcasses of animals from dumping grounds. The reports also said the gang had been supplying such rotten meat to restaurants for around five years.

The police have since arrested at least 10 people, including a CPI-M ex-municipal councillor named Manik Mukherjee.

Modus operandi

The gang allegedly obtained carcasses of animals from dumping grounds and treated them with chemicals to mask the smell.

The meat was then frozen at around 6-7 degrees Celsius and packed. The packets were subsequently sold in West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha and Assam. Those arrested have reportedly told the police that some of the meat was sold in a foreign country – possibly Nepal – as well.

Mukherjee was a councillor at the Gayeshpur municipality in the Nadia district of West Bengal in the 1990s. He was also an employee of the nearby Kalyani municipality. It was here that he was in charge of the dumping grounds.

The rotten carcass meat gang apparently thrived with him in the loop, because he helped them procure carcasses from the dumping grounds he oversaw.

The undoing

What spelt the death knell for this gang was the arrest of two people carrying large quantities of meat in a taxi on April 20 in the Budge Budge area.

“The racket was discovered after one of the wheels of the taxi fell in a deep pothole and the driver asked for help from some locals,” Gautam Dasgupta, vice-chairman of Budge Budge municipality, was quoted by a Hindustan Times report as saying.

“When the vehicle didn’t move after much pushing, the locals decided to empty the luggage compartment and found the meat,” he added.

“Initial investigation revealed that these people used to sell the meat in some street markets in the Sealdah area of Kolkata.” Tapas Sinha, officer-in-charge, Budge Budge police station, was quoted by the aforementioned HT report as saying. “We collected more information and arrested Sunny Mullick, one of the key players, from Nawada district in Bihar.”

He added: “Another key player, Sharafat Hussain, was nabbed in Kalyani. They told us that they sent this meat to Bihar, Odisha and even Assam.”

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