The West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department on Tuesday produced a chargesheet against 12 accused persons in the carcass meat racket case, close to four months after their arrest, a senior CID officer said.
The chargesheet has been produced in a case registered at South 24 Parganas district's Budge Budge police station on April 19, where the accused persons have been slapped with charges of selling noxious and adulterated food (IPC 272, 273) and criminal conspiracy (IPC 120B), the officer said.
The CID has also identified six of the 12 people as the main accused in the case while praying for discharging two arrested security guards of a cold storage where the carcass meat was allegedly stored as there was no evidence against them.
"A chargesheet has been produced against 12 persons on Tuesday for their alleged involvement in storing and selling of carcass meat. Two security guards of the concerned cold storage named Pradip Roy and Samsul Abedin have been left out from the chargesheet as there was no evidence of their involvement in the case," Deputy Inspector General of state CID Nishad Parvez said.
"Six of the main accused including Binsen Saimon, Sunny Mullick, Bishwanath Gharui, Sarafat Hossain, Manik Mukherjee and Golam Mohammed are still in jail custody in another case of carcass meat selling, registered at the Bongaon police station in South 24 Parganas district," he said.
Five of the 12 accused mentioned in the chargesheet, were granted bail on July 25 as the CID failed to file the charge sheet due to the non-availability of certain reports.
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The officer said decisions about those on bail would be taken by the court during further legal procedures.
Police had earlier this year busted a racket involved in processing the flesh of carcasses collected from dumping grounds in Kolkata and adjoining suburbs and selling it to local restaurants and departmental stores. A huge quantity of rotten meat was seized from a city cold storage as part of the investigation.
A dozen people were arrested including the kingpin Biswanath Gharui, 52, who also owned the cold storage in north Kolkata's Narkeldanga.
The CID took over the probe into the meat racket in May.
--IANS
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