More Than What Meets The Eye

One of the biggest rack-ets in the country areof illegal “cold stor-ages” or “meat pro-cessing” factories. In2019, I went to Belagavi, Karnataka to answer a frantic call for help by local residents who had uncovered a number of cold storages that were allegedly killing thousands of buffaloes illegally.

- Maneka Gandhi

I took the local politicians and went to these factories. Getting in was a problem as the owners had fled and locked the factories. However, I entered and we found ourselves knee-deep in blood with thousands of flies. The place was like the worst hell one can imagine.

Filthy meat factories

The factory wasn’t exactly a secret. The local police commissioner first denied its existence and then defended the police’s actions. The cows were smuggled in from Goa and then slaughtered in a field. The dead animals were brought into the factory and cut and then the filthy meat packaged and exported. My team and I unearthed a similar racket in Bihar: A locked ‘cold storage’ next to a police chowki. The owner was an exporter from Delhi. He had been exporting the meat for years with impunity. He fled the country.

The meat industry has three distinct components. First, there are slaughterhouses where animals are killed and skinned. Second are meat shops where flesh is sold in retail. The third are meat processing factories. After animals have been killed and skinned in slaughterhouses, they need to be hacked into pieces, deboned, packaged and refrigerated for export. This work is done in meat processing factories. Cold storages are part of the factories and usually just rooms with filthy ice slabs in sawdust-covered with blood. The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and Rules provide for separate licencing for each of these three activities.