Flies, street cat and dog could have had a go at the meat on your dish

As tigers at the Bannerghatta Biological Park (BBP) take ill with bacterial infection, there is concern that the meat supplied in the city might have been contaminated too.

On Friday, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) commissioner Siddaiah, speaking to DNA, said that no special permission was required to visit slaughterhouses. “Anybody can visit,” he said, although officials seemed to think otherwise.

Make a trip to the slaughterhouse, however, and there is a good chance that you will vow to turn vegetarian. This reporter made a trip to two slaughterhouses in the city on Friday, one at Tannery Road, and the other at Russell Market.

Officials at the BBP had said that the meat fed to the tigers that have fallen sick was sourced from slaughterhouses of the BBMP. “Our work is not to process meat here. We perform tests on the meat before it is sent out,” said Dr Parvez Ahmed Piran, joint director, animal husbandry department, BBMP.

Slaughtering of animals at both the slaughterhouses is done manually. The carcass is hung in a chamber, where a post-mortem is conducted. If the animal is found fit for consumption, it is sent for storage. Else, it is rejected. The process is simple, almost crude.

At the Tannery Road slaughterhouse, whichwas established during British rule, there is little evidence of change over time. There are reports that far many more animals are slaughtered here than the abattoir’s capacity of 200, especially during festival times like Eid. The BBMP had been planning to mechanise operations here. The process was meant to occur in a build-operate-own-transfer mode. Dr Piran said that the property would be owned by whoever made the investment for 15 years, before it would be transferred back to the BBMP.

However, in December 2009, the boundary wall of the slaughterhouse was demolished as part of road-widening activity here. In 2006, a proposal had been mooted to shift the slaughterhouses on Tannery Road, Yeshwanthpur and KR Market to Igaluru in Anekal, on the city’s outskirts. However, that move met stiff opposition from merchants, consumers, and residents of Chandrapura gram panchayat.

There are puddles of water and sewage in the compound of the Tannery Road slaughterhouse. You’ll find flies and mosquitoes all over. Even as you approach the slaughterhouse, the stench can be overpowering.

It’s not very different at the beef market within Russell Market. Large quantities of beef are sent across the city from here. Large piles of meat are seen. Large chopped pieces are washed and placed on shelves. All this is done in the open, and there is nothing to keep the flies away. Huge chunks of meat were seen placed in wooden boxes with ice. Even as the flies land with gay abandon on the meat, there was a street cat clambering over the mounds of meat on the shelves, unrestrained. Stray dogs too are sometimes seen here.

The freshly-cut meat is washed in water, and the water turns red with the blood. KJ Khasim Ajaz Ahmed Qurieshi, president of the meat sellers and suppliers’ association of Bangalore, said that doctors from the animal husbandry department of the BBMP routinely conduct tests on the animals sent for slaughter. “We only supply stocks after the doctors of the animal husbandry department ratify that it is fit for consumption. There has, to my knowledge, been no report of any bacterial outbreak caused by the beef and mutton supplied from Russell Market.”

BBMP commissioner Siddaiah is not unaware of the conditions under which meat supplies are made to the city. “I have visited the city’s slaughterhouses, and I am aware of the pathetic conditions. The Palike will soon take up the matter,” said Siddaiah.The conditions in which city abattoirs operate will change soon, says BBMP commissioner siddaiah, who claims that he has visited them and is aware of the mess