People in Odisha too eat carcass meat in restaurants or hotels, which is evident from the arrest of a man of West Bengal for running a racket engaged in supply of meat collected from dead animals disposed in dumps.
Biswanath Garai (52), a resident of Sonarpur in South 24 Parganas district, the kingpin of the racket, was supplying the rotten meat to Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand, according to West Bengal official sources.
The West Bengal Government’s food safety teams and the police had seized 20 tonnes of rotten meat of dead animals allegedly sourced from dumping grounds meant to be supplied to eateries and departmental stores in that State and neighbouring Jharkhand, Odisha and Bihar.
Garai was arrested on Wednesday evening from the Garia railway station area by the SIT probing the case. He is the owner of a godown in Kolkata’s Narkeldanga, where the rotten meat was being stored, WB senior police officer Koteswara Rao was quoted as saying.
According to the police, the accused who owns a godown in northern part of Kolkata where the meat of dead animals was stored, was allegedly involved in collecting the meat and then processing it.
Carcass meat was collected from different dumps in and around the city and stored in cold storage. From there, it was supplied to city restaurants and departmental stores.
So far, 11 persons had been arrested in connection with the case. On Sunday, eight persons were arrested for their alleged involvement in the trade of rotten chickens.
last week, the police had seized nearly 20 tonnes of animal meat from a cold storage in north Kolkata that was meant to be supplied to departmental stores and hotels and arrested 10 persons.
The police are preparing a detailed list of departmental stores and eateries where such meat was supplied while also looking into an international angle to the racket amid suspicion that the rotten meat was also supplied to neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Nepal.