A high-power committee headed by the chief secretary will probe the racket, said Mamata Banerjee
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today broke her silence on the racket in
rotten meat of suspect origin that has rocked Kolkata but other parts of the state and put numerous people off meat and chicken for over three weeks now.
"I know many people have stopped eating meat. A high-power committee headed by the chief secretary will probe the racket," she said, adding, "Once a fool-proof mechanism is put in place, we will tell people about actions taken and it is now safe to eat meat."
On 19 April, reports of meat from animal carcasses being
mixed with fresh meat and being sold as the real thing emerged. Since then, rotten chicken meat has also been found at wholesale centres.
Over the past few days 11 people including a retired CPI(M) civic councilor from Kalyani in Nadia district have been arrested. Mamata Banerjee praised the swift action taken by the police in the matter. "You also know that this wasn't limited to West Bengal, they had links outside the state. Police did a good job, many people have been arrested," Ms Banerjee said.
A wholesale chicken outlet near Kolkata airport was raided and rotting chicken was found in the deep freezer
The carcass meat racket surfaced when some locals at Budge Budge in the south 24 parganas, stopped a taxi coming out of animal carcass dumpyard with several kilos of meat in the trunk. Just days later, 20 tonnes of rotten meat were recovered from a cold storage at Narkeldanga in Kolkata, followed by rotting chicken in Newtown, Kolkata.
Biswajit Garai,
owner of the Narkeldanga cold storage arrested on Thursday, revealed almost 40% of the carcass meat was sold in the New Market area, right under the nose of Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
A PIL h
as been filed by an environment activist at Calcutta High Court on May 4, demanding Judicial Intervention into the matter.
According to the chief minister, the eight-member panel that will probe the racket includes Kolkata's Police Commissioner, the DGP, the home secretary, Principal Secretary Health, Principal Secretary Municipal affairs and urban development, principal secretary Animal Husbandry, principal Secretary of food and supplies and the Additional secretary of Panchayat and Rural Development.