Raids on spurious ghee factory, sellers in the net

Lucknow, July 5 (UNI) In a major swoop on spurious ghee manufacturers and sellers in Uttar Pradesh, the Special Task Force (STF) of the state police seized over four quintals of the product and arrested 12 persons.

During a night-long operations in Fatehpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Agra and Kanpur, the STF raided a factory in Bindki in Fatehpur and recovered spurious ghee, wrappers and packing materials of leading brands from the premises.

A STF team raided a defunct rice mill in Bindki last night and found a fully automatic spurious ghee manufacturing factory. The team also recovered 400 kg of fake ghee and wrappers of leading brands including 'Parag', 'Amul', 'Anik'.

The factory had the capacity to produce one tonne of fake ghee daily. The rice mill owners Upendra, Abhimanyu, Govardhan and Gopal were also arrested from the spot.

According to sources, the ghee produced was sent to various cities in the state.

''We have raided godowns and shops in wholesale markets of Allahabad, Kanpur, Varanasi, Agra and Fatehpur and seized spurious ghee, most of which was packed in half-kg packets...now we would target people who used to transport the product to the sellers,'' said a senior STF official here.

In Varanasi, wholesale markets of Visheshwarganj and Chetganj were raided.

The STF had been working on the case for quite some time now.

''We knew someone was producing and selling fake ghee in the open market. With the arrests in Bindki, we have busted one of the factories...our raids would continue in the future too,'' the official added.

UNI