BELAGAVI: The owner of a cold storage in Auto Nagar, which is facing allegations of carrying out illegal slaughter of animals, has clarified at a press conference here on Friday that his business was legal and he was being hounded by BJP workers.
Several BJP leaders, including Union Minister Maneka Gandhi, had accused Amol Mohandas, who runs Srishti Agro and Cold Storage, of running an illegal slaughter house. Some organisations had even carried out raids at the outlet.
Mohandas stated that he was running a processing unit at Auto Nagar, where meat was being preserved in cold storage as per government guidelines. He claimed he had got all the relevant approvals from district administration before starting the unit.
Twice last week, several state BJP leaders, including Pralhad Joshi, Jagadish Shettar and Suresh Angadi, had raided the cold storage alleging that illegal slaughter was taking place.
While Ms Gandhi had said she would recommend a CBI inquiry, Mr Angadi even alleged that the cold storage owner was employing illegal migrants from Bangladesh.
The BJP leaders dragged the names of Congress MLA Feroz Sait and his brother for their links with the cold storage.
Mohandas said efforts were being made to get the cold storage closed without any prior notice. He also denied employing any illegal immigrants. He said several of his employees hailed from other states, but none of them were illegal immigrants as alleged by political leaders.
He said local authorities have seized several cold storages without any prior notice and efforts were on close down his unit. He urged local authorities to first check all the licences obtained by the units before taking such a drastic step.
