Nearly two tonnes of meat, suspected to be that of dogs, and meant for supply to the city’s hotels, was seized by officials of the Food Safety and Drug Administration Department and the Railway Protection Force (RPF) at Egmore railway station from a parcel van of the Jodhpur Express on Saturday.
The train arrived at the station at 10.16 am. Thermocol boxes were unloaded from the parcel van. A few persons who claimed to be receivers loaded the crates onto a trolley. RPF Sub-Inspectors S. Krishnan and A. Baskaran, grew suspicious and asked them to open the boxes. When Food and Drug Administration and Health Department officials of the Chennai Corporation reached the spot, those receivers abandoned the goods and fled.
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On inspection, the officials were shocked to see the boxes containing undressed meat without the mandatory seal. R. Kathiravan, designated officer of Food Safety Department, told The Hindu , “We intercepted a parcel van last month at the Central Railway Station where we found meat in parcels which were declared to be fish. As a follow-up to that, we got credible information on similar parcels arriving on Saturday. On inspection, we found 20 boxes in the van... We inspected them and found the meat was not transported at the specified freezing temperature. No cold chain was maintained...” Another official said, “It seems to be dog meat since the carcasses have long tails... We suspect they were brought in under the pretext of supplying mutton to city hotels.”
The parcels were booked and loaded in Jodhpur. It is not clear who booked them and who the consignee was. No one came forward to claim the parcels until 1.30 p.m. Two samples were sent to the Government Veterinary College for tests, to identify the animal.