Meat matters: Slaughterhouses in Capital are using injured cattle!

The seizure of over dozens of trucks transporting hundreds of injured cattle (buffaloes and goats) last week near ITO in central Delhi has raised alarm for illegal slaughter houses rampant in the city.

The cattle were allegedly being transported to a slaughter house in Delhi. Injured or infected animals are not allowed to be slaughtered as they are not fit for human consumption.

There is only one authorised slaughter house in the entire city at Gazipur with a capacity of 15,000 cattle a day. The civic officials said that the health inspector overlooked the entire process at the slaughter house. ‘The health inspector makes sure that only healthy animals are slaughtered. The cattle are first examined by a team before it is processed’, said YS Mann, spokesman of East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC).

It is, therefore, widely speculated that poor quality meat is being processed at the illegal butcher houses since there is no one to supervise the process. Some even say that even dead animals are butchered at the illegal abattoirs.

A senior civic official informed that there are thousands of illegal butcher shops in operation in the capital. ‘To put an exact number to the illegal slaughter houses operating in the city is really difficult. But it is easily over 10,000. Most of them are operating from JJ colonies across the city’, said the officer not wishing to be named.

Varyam Kaur, leader of opposition in EDMC, said the East corporation has failed to put a tab on the illegal slaughter houses. ‘The officials are definitely involved in giving a free hand to illegal butchers. Why is no action being taken against these unauthorised abattoirs. Poor quality meat is being circulated in the market due to their casual attitude’, she said.