Vadodara samosas case: Cow beef supplier arrested, 8 in police net so far

The cow beef supplier, Fardeen Mohammed from Bhalej in Anand district, is a partner of Imran Yusuf Qureshi, who was arrested on April 8 for allegedly supplying the beef to Yusuf Sheikh and Naeem Sheikh, the owners of Hussaini Samosa Centre.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone 4) Panna Momaya said, “The local court had granted one-day remand of the six accused arrested earlier and Imran Qureshi. During questioning, Imran Qureshi told the police that he was running the business of supplying cow beef along with his partner Fardeen Mohammed.”

“They ran the business from Bhalej… A probe is on to ascertain if they supplied cow beef to other places in Vadodara and also to ascertain if other suppliers in the city were connected to the shopowners,” Momaya added.

On Tuesday, a Vadodara Police team had fanned out in Anand district to arrest Fardeen while the Special Operations Group and officials of the food and health department of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation conducted raids at mutton shops in the city to collect samples to determine if cow beef was being used to prepare food.

Momaya said that according to the accused, they resorted to using cow beef instead of mutton in the samosas owing to it being cheaper. “They supplied the ready-to-fry samosas to the stalls and shops selling meat samosas across the city and there are chances testing of more samples may bring the same result… We are awaiting the probe report,” she added.

In a raid on Saturday, the Local Crime Branch of Vadodara City Zone 4 seized 113 kg of cow beef as well as 152 kg of the filling prepared to make the samosas from the suppliers of Hussaini Samosa Centre, which is run out of a five-storey building in Chhipwad.

Six people, including owners Yusuf Sheikh and Naeem Sheikh, as well as employees Hanif Bhathiyara, Dilawar Pathan, Moin Habdal and Mobin Shaikh were arrested. All of them have been booked under Section 8 and Section 10 of the The Gujarat Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill 2017, which prescribe penalties for contravention of the anti-cow slaughter law.