Linkman of carcass meat racket arrested, raids continue
Kolkata, May 4: A day after police arrested the kingpin of a carcass meat selling racket in the city, another linkman of the racket was arrested from the Kolkata airport area, police said on Friday.
Following the arrest of the kingpin of a carcass meat selling racket in the city, police apprehended another person from the city airport area for allegedly working as a linkman between the racket and buyers, a senior official said on Friday.
"A person named Sikandar Ali was arrested from the airport area in Dumdum on Thursday night. The prima facie evidence shows that he worked as a linkman in this case," Diamond Harbour Superintendent of Police Koteshwar Rao told IANS.
"The arrested persons are being interrogated to determine their involvements in the racket. The raids by the Special Investigating Team are going on in Kolkata and the adjoining districts," he said.
The police had last week busted a racket involved in processing the flesh of carcasses collected from dumping grounds in and adjoining suburbs and selling it to local restaurants and departmental stores and seized huge quantity of rotten meat from a city cold storage.
Police has arrested 12 people so far including the kingpin Biswanath Garai (52), who also owned the cold storage in north Kolkata's Narkeldanga.
Meanwhile, officials of Kolkata Municipal Corporations and district municipalities conducted fresh raids in local restaurants and eateries and sent food samples for testing.
Two restaurants in Dunlop in city's northern fringes were sealed after large quantity of rotten chicken, fish items were seized from there.
Political parties including a local committee of Congress staged demonstrations in front of Kolkata Corporation demanding measures to ensure food safety.
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Sharad Pawar praised RSS after seeing how it burst fake narrative balloon of LS polls: Fadnavis
Nagpur, Jan 10: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar praised the RSS after realising how the outfit managed to overcome the fake narrative spread by the opposition in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The opposition had claimed BJP wanted to win 400 seats to change the Constitution and end reservations, a narrative which BJP leaders later claimed hit the party hard.
On Pawar praising the RSS recently, the CM said the MVA was successful in creating a fake narrative during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
"When assembly polls were approaching, many people from diverse fields who are inspired by the RSS played their role and burst the balloon of this fake narrative. Sharad Pawar saheb is very intelligent. He would have certainly studied this aspect. He realised that this (RSS) is not a regular political power but a nationalist power. In any competition it is good to praise others," he added.
That is why Pawar may have praised the RSS, Fadnavis said.
Speaking at an interaction with senior editor Vivek Ghalsasi at Late Vilasji Fadnis Jivhala programme here, Fadnavis also said he had asked for organisational work when Eknath Shinde was made chief minister in June 2022, but senior leaders asked him to join the government.
He also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked him not to behave like an extra-constitutional authority in the government.
He said the decision to become deputy chief minister on the command of the party leadership earned him a lot of praise from the cadre.
After the massive mandate the ruling alliance received in the 2024 assembly polls, Fadnavis said people and party workers would not have been happy if the CM was not from the BJP.
Shinde himself agreed within minutes that the CM must be from the BJP, which itself got 132 seats and was close to a majority of its own in the 288-member assembly, he added.
On Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray meeting him during the winter sessions of the legislature in Nagpur, Fadnavis said he had announced he would not indulge in politics of revenge after becoming CM and all leaders responded positively to it.
On chances of the NCP (SP) and NCP coming closer or reuniting, Fadnavis said, "If you see the developments that took place from 2019 to 2024, I realised never say never and anything can happen. Uddhav Thackeray goes to some other party and Ajit Pawar comes to us. In politics anything can happen though I am not saying this should happen."
He praised BJP leader Arun Gujarati from whom he learnt patience, which he claimed was an important quality in politics along with the ability to take criticism.
In a lighter vein, he said, "I only get angry when I am hungry. If you see me angry then give me something to eat and my anger will go away."
