Chennai: It is sheep meat, not dog's, says vet college

Chennai: A team of railway police left for Jodhpur on Thursday morning to investigate the source of the 2,000 kgs of carcasses even as the Government Veterinary College in the city confirmed that the meat seized was that of sheep, not dog meat as suspected.

The meat-eaters of the city were in for a shock on Friday when the food safety department seized 2,000 kgs of meat from the Egmore railway station. The consignment of 20 crates from Jodhpur raised suspicions of their being dog meat, especially because of the length of their tails.

A team has been sent to investigate the sender of the consignment and the person to whom it was to be delivered to.

“The issue was never the nature of the animal. The Food safety department seized it as several rules were violated according to the Food Safety Regulation Act, 2011,” said R Kathiravan, Designated Officer, Food Safety department.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Kathiravan said that the Food Safety Department was involved as several rules were broken according to the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. “Meat that’s transported long distance has to be kept on ice. And ice melts quickly, so it has to be changed every six hours. This train journey was a total of 48 hours and nothing of the sort was done,” said Kathiravan.

The meat was also not cut at an authorised slaughterhouse, he said. “According to the Act, meat should be cut at a hygienic, authorised slaughterhouse, and when that is done, the meat would be marked and stamped twice by a government-appointed veterinarian, which wasn’t the case with this lot,” he said.

Another broken rule was that the meat should not be in direct contact with ice. It should be placed in a food-grade box which would be packed with ice. In this case, the meat was stuffed with ice. The kind of water the ice was made with was also questionable, said Kathiravan. “The boxes were labelled ‘fish’ which also added to the suspicion,” he said.

The report sent by the Veterinary College, however, says the skeleton and the carcass of the animal were typical of sheep. “There is no doubt. All morphological details are in accordance with small ruminants, specifically sheep,” said an official from the college. “It is typical of goats and sheep from the north to have tails like that. It’s not unusual,” he added.

Meanwhile, Arun Prasanna G, on behalf of the People For Cattle India said the report is flawed.

“It is not the fault of the Veterinary hospital. The carcass submitted may have been tampered with. How can they destroy all the 2,000 kgs of meat when a case has been registered?”  He has filed a PIL which is going for hearing on Friday. “The shape of the dog’s leg, the colour of the meat, the fat content, etc., shows that the meat isn’t of sheep at all. There is a huge ‘meat mafia’ running under our noses,” he said.