Muqeed rushed to the Task Force police office at Purani Haveli on learning that they had raided his tallow making factory at Bahadurpura in the old city.
Not bothering to see the official permits he possessed, the policemen told him that the raid was conducted at the behest of “top officials”. “No use of showing any papers. You are making oil using animal bones and we’re booking a case,” they reportedly said, rather bluntly.
The factory owner wondered what power the police had to raid his unit and register case when there was nothing illegal about it. Five months later, a local court directed the police concerned to return all that they had seized from the factory premises declaring that Muqeed had licence to make tallow and store it.
This is not the story of just Muqeed, but several such factory owners on the fringes of old city, who were being targeted by police and other officials with “unjustified” raids. Such factories making tallow are raided by police accusing the owners of using “bones of animals to make oil”.
“They even mislead the media alleging that we were doing illegal activity by using animal bones to make oil. We are blamed that we supply this oil to hotels and this is more highlighted,” one such unit owner said, declining to be identified.
According to them, bones of animals are not used to make oil. Moreover, it is not oil they produce but only tallow, which is used in making soaps and also as a feed to shrimps. “The government issues General Sales Tax receipts for the tallow production to be sold outside the State. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) also issues licenses for this process,” said a firm owner.
Factory owners like Muqeed maintain that some persons even attempted to trigger communal tension by spreading rumours that bones of animals, sacred to a particular religion, were being used. By pointing out police raids and cases registered, the rumour mongers disseminate false information, he charged.
In Muqeed’s case, police had to return all the tins of tallow and a vehicle they had seized. The court didn’t buy the argument of police that the oil produced in the factory was hazardous to the people living in the vicinity. “We can only hope that police at least stop such raids and would not attempt to implicate us in false cases after seeing the court verdict,” he said.
