Bara, April 11

Police in Bara raided and sealed a godown after the pulses supplied from there and meant to be distributed for relief was found to be of poor quality.

Police have confiscated 380 bags of pulses after raiding Yadav Ice and Cold Store of Rangpur in Kalaiya sub-metropolis. As per sources, the storage facility is run by Mayor Rajesh Raya Yadav and his relatives.

On Friday, as the metropolis was distributing relief for the poor in Basatpur Ward No 20, locals had raised question over the quality of pulses being distributed, saying the content in the bags was of very poor quality and couldn’t be eaten. Police had confiscated some 25 bags of pulses meant for relief following locals’ complaints and grilled Chair Mahammad Imamudin Thakurai and learnt that the food item was bought from the mayor’s cold storage.

“Acting on the information given by the ward chair today, we seized around 100 quintal pulses found in the cold store for investigation and also sealed the storage following the directive of the district administration,” said SP Krishna Prasad Pangeni.

“As we’ve sent the samples of pulses to the lab of Nepal Food and Quality Control Department, we’ll take action on the basis of the report from the lab,” Pangeni added.

While Mayor Yadav’s cousin Rabindra Prasad Yadav denied that the sub-standard pulses belonged to them, saying the owner of a pulse mill from Birgunj had rented the facility to store the produce from his mill, Mayor Yadav too said he had entrusted his brothers with the operation of the cold storage after he became mayor.

“Dragging me into controversy over the sub-standard food item which is not mine is wrong,” he argued. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the district, police have sealed a rice mill in Jaitapur. According to SP Pangeni, police have seized 35 bags of rice from Birendra Sah’s rice mill over suspicion that the rice was sub-standard.

They launched the raid acting on the complaints that the mill had sold sub-standard rice to be distributed as relief in Jaitapur and Materiya of Ward-22 following the direction from the DAO.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on April 12, 2020 of The Himalayan Times.