Spices laced with deadly additives were sold: Cops

Hyderabad: In a major operation against adulteration of food stuff, the South  Zone police Wednesday arrested the main operator in the city as also  some traders selling such spices and other items. Three of the  arrested including the kingpin were from Uttar Pradesh and 11 were  traders of Begum Bazar.

More than 1,000 bags of chemicals including iron oxide, synthetic gums and artificial colour have been seized from the main gang, police said  after a series of raids in the city.

According to police, main accused Rajesh Gupta from Jalalabad in  Shahjahanpur district of Uttar Pradesh had adulterated spices with  highly toxic materials such as sodium hydro-sulphate, stone powder,  paints, iron oxide, white lubrication oil and other unapproved and  dangerous colour additives. Cops raided several shops and his secret  godown and seized stocks.

Police said the 11 traders arrested from Begum Bazar had stored adulterated seeds from Gupta and were selling them even as they were aware these were adulterated stuff, which was codenamed D-maal.

“Gupta adulterated spices like black pepper, poppy, cumin seeds and shahjeera in Hussaini Alam and was supplying them to markets in Delhi and Raipur as also to wholesale traders in Begum Bazar,” said South Zone DCP V. Satyanarayana.

It was in February last that Gupta started his secret unit in a rented place owned by ex-MP from Secunderabad and Congress leader Anjan Kumar Yadav at Chandrikapuram in Hussaini Alam. “He took one portion of the  house at Hussaini Alam from the brother of Anjan Kumar Yadav and hired 25 people for preparing the duplicate pepper, poppy, cumin and caraway  seeds”, police said.

Giving the break-up of the seized items, police said they were as  follows: 108 bags of adulterated pepper, 166 bags of poppy, 125 bags of   cumin; 20 bags of papaya seeds, 40 bags of flour, 127 bags of maida  and five bags of stone powder.