Men held for supplying meat of dead cow to Kolkata restaurants

Two persons including an employee of Budge Budge Municipality in South 24 Parganas have been arrested for allegedly running a racket of supplying meat extracted from carcass of cows, to different eateries in Kolkata.

Residents of Budge Budge area had been noticing for some days that the area marked by the local municipal body to dump carcass of cattle and other animals was being cleared as soon as a body was dumped. “Curious, we thought we would keep an eye on the place and this morning, as soon as a dead cow was dumped there, we say Raja Mullick, who is a Group D staff member of the Budge Budge Municipality skinning the animal and carrying the meat into a taxi. We caught him and the driver of the car Shyamlal. When questioned, he was fumbling for answers and could not come up with a satisfactory reply as to what he was doing with the meat of the dead cow,” said an area local.

The two were beaten up by local residents and then handed over to the police. It was found out that as they were beaten up, Mullick had confessed that he used to collect meat of dead cattle and supply those to different eateries in Kolkata.  “Even the thought of it is nauseating. He might have supplied the meat to restaurants here as well and we may have eaten those,” said another resident of the area.

Police said that the two used to collect the meat from the dumping ground and take in taxi to a small workshop which he had hired. There the meat was cut in smaller pieces, filled with ice in thermocol boxes and delivered to different restaurants in Kolkata. An irate mob besides beating the duo also damaged the car which was used to transporting the meat. Police said an they have initiated an investigation and were also trying to find out who else are involved in the network. Sometime ago, another racket of supplying meat of dead chicken to restaurants and roadside eateries had been busted by the police.