Houses raided in Sangrur, ‘spurious’ milk seized

Parvesh Sharma

Tribune News Service

Sangrur, January 19

The district police raided four houses manufacturing “spurious” milk at Rupaheri village here today.

Raising questions about the quality of milk, the police said the spurious milk from all four factories was allegedly supplied to the Sangrur Verka plant.

A special team of the Sangrur Sadar police station and Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) led by DSP, Investigations, Sukhdev Singh was trying to arrest the accused red-handed for the past one week.

Police teams conducted simultaneous raids at the houses of Amrik Singh, his brother Harjinder Singh and two other residents of Rupaheri village - Pritpal Singh and Gurdeep Singh. The police seized 58 kg of spurious milk, 195-kg refined, 153 empty iron boxes, 15-kg mixture of jaggery powder and sugar, 10-kg glucose, four pick-up vehicles, Rs 40,000 in cash and eight milking machines.

“The vehicles of all four were hired by the Sangrur Verka milk plant authorities for milk collection from its centres in various villages. The accused were caught mixing spurious milk, prepared by them, into the milk collected from various villages in their vehicles,” said Sangrur SSP Mandeep Sidhu.

The police have registered a case under Sections 272, 273 and 420 of the IPC and Section 7 of the Essential Commodities Act.

The development has shocked residents of Sangrur and surrounding areas as the Verka plant is the biggest milk supplier in the area.

However, the plant authorities have denied the allegations. “We have a very effective quality check system and we do not allow any adulteration in milk,” said Rakesh Kumar Gupta, General Manager of the Sangrur plant.