Former UP minister, 13 others booked; raw meat recovered

The Meerut police registered a case against 14 persons, including former UP minister and BSP leader Yakoob Qureshi, his wife and two sons, after recovery of a huge quantity of raw meat and other material from Qureshi’s meat factory in Kharkhauda area here on Friday.

Station house officer (SHO) of Kharkhauda police station Dinesh Kumar said the case, under sections 420 (cheating), 269 and 270 (likely to spread infection of any disease dangerous to life), 272 (adulteration of food) and 273 (selling food which is unfit for consumption) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), has been registered against Yakoob Qureshi, his wife Sanjeeda Begum, sons Imran Qureshi and Feroz Qureshi and 10 workers of the factory.

Kumar said illegal packaging of meat was going on in the factory despite its licence being cancelled due to irregularities in construction. However, slaughter of animals was being carried out somewhere else.

The SHO said about 6,000 kg raw meat, more than 1,200 kg animal bones and packaging material were recovered during the raid of police and other law enforcement departments on Thursday.

The 10 workers caught during the raid were sent to the jail on Friday and raids were being conducted to arrest others named in the FIR, said circle officer of Kotwali area Arvind Chaurasia.

Qureshi’s meat factory Al Faheem Meatex is situated on Hapur Road and it exports meat to many Middle East countries.

Interestingly, although the licence of the factory was cancelled in 2019, it had electricity connection. The arrested workers revealed that packaging work was going on in the factory for the last 20 days and its electricity connection was restored after clearance of electricity dues.

Superintendent of police (rural) Keshav Mishra said a thorough investigation would be carried out in the case before submitting a charge sheet.

Yakoob contested the Lok Sabha election of 2019 and lost by a slender margin to his BJP rival Rajendra Agarwal. He was also an MLA and served as a minister in the Mayawati government.