Five persons were arrested after condoms, gutka packets, and stones were purportedly found in samosas provided to a “major automobile company” located in Pimpri Chinchwad in Maharashtra's Pune, news agency ANI reported citing police on Monday.
The report further identified the arrested individuals as Rahim Shaikh, Azhar Shaikh, Mazhar Shaikh, Firoz Shaikh, and Vicky Shaikh.
The men booked included two employees from a subcontracting company tasked with supplying the samosas and three associates from another firm, which had its contract terminated previously due to allegations of snack adulteration.
"Out of the five accused, the three partners had allegedly planted the other two workers to ensure the firm that had gotten the fresh contract would get defamed," police said.
According to officials, Catalyst Service Solutions Pvt. Ltd. was tasked with supplying snacks to the canteen of the automobile company. However, Catalyst Service had subcontracted the provision of samosas to another firm called Manohar Enterprise.
“During the investigation on Sunday, after Manohar Enterprises' staffers were questioned over the incident, it was found that two workers, identified as Firoz Shaikh and Vicky Shaikh, had allegedly stuffed condoms, gutka and stones in the samosas,” the police further said.
Why did they do it?
During the interrogation of the suspects, it came to light that employees from SRA Enterprises (whose contracts were terminated previously due to adulteration issues) had dispatched two of its workers to Manohar Enterprises intending to contaminate the food supplied to the company, aiming “to tarnish the reputation of Manohar Enterprise”.
{{/usCountry}}During the interrogation of the suspects, it came to light that employees from SRA Enterprises (whose contracts were terminated previously due to adulteration issues) had dispatched two of its workers to Manohar Enterprises intending to contaminate the food supplied to the company, aiming “to tarnish the reputation of Manohar Enterprise”.
{{/usCountry}}“The other three accused are the partners of SRA Enterprises, which was removed from the contract earlier after a first aid bandage was found in the samosa supplied to the automobile company,” the police said.
The police have filed a case under IPC sections 328 (pertaining to causing harm by means of poison) and 120B (related to criminal conspiracy). They have also stated that additional inquiries into the incident are ongoing.
(With ANI inputs)