Thane, Mar 7 (PTI) Police have raided a factory in Maharashtra’s Thane district where spurious butter was manufactured and sold in the name of a popular brand and arrested its owner and another person, an official said on Thursday.
Based on a tip-off, a crime branch team conducted the raid on Tuesday at the premises located near an under-construction building in Khoni village of Dombivli area, senior police inspector Naresh Pawar said.
As per preliminary investigation, the factory owner used to mix vanaspati, refined palmolein oil, salt, food colour and other ingredients to prepare blocks of spurious butter, which were then stored in a deep freezer, wrapped in butter paper bearing the name of a popular brand and sold in the market, he said.
The spurious butter was supplied to hotels, street vendors selling sandwiches and dhabas (roadside eateries) after being falsely labelled as a genuine product, he said.
During the raid, the police seized machinery, accessories used in the manufacturing process, raw materials and cartons of the popular brand, collectively valued at Rs 2,93,255, the official said.
The crime branch arrested the unit owner and another person involved in the offence from a village near Dombivli.
An FIR was registered against them under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 272 (adulteration of food or drink intended for sale), 273 (sale of noxious food or drink) and 34 (common intention) and provisions of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, the police said. PTI COR GK
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