Meat-van staff suspended

RAJKOT, May 10: Rajkot municipal commissioner Pankaj Kumar has suspended the driver and six workers of the waste-meat disposal van from whic...

RAJKOT, May 10: Rajkot municipal commissioner Pankaj Kumar has suspended the driver and six workers of the waste-meat disposal van from which pieces of flesh fell out while the waste was being transported out of the city from an abattoir in Sadar.

Rajkot city passed a tense Saturday evening after large pieces of flesh and meat were found strewn all over the Bhupinder Road, with one piece lying exactly opposite a temple.

Though there were rumours of mischief by some miscreants who wanted to create communal tension, RMC managed to trace the real culprits to the driver and co-workers of van which clears waste meat from abattoirs and disposes it of outside the city limits. The van was carrying waste from the abattoir in Sadar Bazaar.

Municipal officials said that the workers on the waste-disposal van did not latch the vehicle properly, which resulted in the meat falling all over the road. 8220;This was brought to the notice of the driver by passers-by but he apparently chose to ignore it and thus, the driver as well as the workers have been suspended for negligence of duty,8221; officials said.

RMC offices were flooded with phone calls in the afternoon as people noticed the putrid flesh on the roads through which the van passed. However, an hour later just as tension was beginning to build, the fire brigade moved in to clean-up the mess. The driver of the waste-disposal truck has been absconding since.

The disposal of waste meat from abattoirs is snowballing into an issue as a section the BJP supported by the VHP and Bajrang Dal is lobbying for a ban on abattoirs in the city. 8220;There are a couple of places where illegal slaughter goes on every weekend using the most crude methods and the waste is not disposed of properly, causing sanitation problems,8221; said a supporter.

The anti-slaughter activists are demanding that the RMC should at least use trucks that are completely covered for transporting the waste from the slaughter houses. 8220;Rajkot is a very religiously-oriented city and incidents like these can spark of unnecessary communal tension,8221; observed one activist.

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According to Pankaj Kumar there is only one illegal slaughter house in the city and the RMC is unable to close it down because of a litigation in court.8220;But now we have decided to keep a watch on the movement of our vehicles as well as private waste-disposal vehicles to prevent incidents like that on Saturday from happening again,8221; Kumar said.