Hyderabad: A man who was arrested for allegedly selling oil extracted from the bones of pigs has reportedly confessed that top Chinese hotels, especially in Secunderabad, and vendors were his clients.
Mithilesh Kumar, 37, told the Rachakonda police that hotels use the oil mostly while preparing vegetarian dishes. “The police is investigating the list of clients.” Following the raid against Mithilesh Kumar’s unit, the Rachakonda commissionerate has written to the regional magistrate for closing it under Section 133 of the CrPC for removal of public nuisance.
On Tuesday, following a tip-off that a raid was imminent, some 300 pigs that are illegally reared in households were transported from RK Puram to the other side of the railway tracks between Ramakrishnapuram and Ammuguda railway stations and set free. The pigs are reared illegally for their oil which is supplied to eateries.
The GHMC North Zone veterinary wing raided the secret units at Ramakrishnapuram and issued closure notices to four units; owners of another two units had fled.
Veterinary officer Govardhan Reddy said that during the raid, “we found extraction of oil from fats, illegal rearing of pigs in residential area and throwing of dairy dung and fodder waste into drainage areas and the lake.”
Besides serving the closure notices, the corporation has suggested ways of rearing the pigs hygienically and warned the owners that there will be consequences if they don’t comply with the rules.
Mithilesh Kumar, who had to pay a fine, told the officers that around 40 migrant families breed pigs, and sell the oil to Chinese fast food centres and some well known hotels.
The Telangana State Pollution Control Board has also held a meeting with the residents in an attempt to find a solution.
Alert residents tip-off on units
It was the Residents Welfare Association and not the police that detected the oil adulteration units in Neredmet. The RWA secretly collected evidence and submitted it to the Rachakonda police.
RWA members allege that it is because of the relations between owners of the oil units and the local police that the units flourish and that it needed the intervention of the police commissioner for the police to raid the units. Residents have identified six more such secret factories.
Suresh (name changed), a resident of Ramakrishnapuram, said, “These secret pig oil manufacturing factories are operating below the RK Puram flyover. Tonnes of oil and ghee is produced and supplied to a chain of Chinese fast food vendors, while the remains such as intestines are sold to pork shops in the twin cities. The waste is dumped in the lake or disposed of at the Neredmet dumping yard.”
About 30 families, mostly migrants from Uttar Pradesh, have made this a family business, since it requires little investment. The pigs are slaughtered and burnt in the houses and the oil extracted from the fat. Residents in the locality have been threatened not to reveal what is going on.
Suresh says RK Puram Lake has turned toxic and unhygienic, and repeated complaints to the Pollution Control Board and GHMC have been ignored. That is why residents personally captured photo and video evidence and submitted the same to the Rachakonda police commissioner. “Despite the issue being serious, only one unit has been seized so far,” he said.
