New Delhi: What began as a police raid to rescue child labourers from a factory in Okhla led to the unearthing of an organised operation that allegedly repackaged expired and near-expired food products and passed them off as fit for consumption in domestic and international markets. The factory has been sealed and seven people, including its 70-year-old owner, have been arrested.The accused bought near-expired products of international brands at throwaway prices, erased the original manufacturing and expiry dates using chemicals, printed fresh dates and nutritional labels, and repackaged them before supplying them through open markets and e-commerce platforms, said police. Food products and machinery worth over Rs 20 lakh have been seized.DCP (southeast) Hemant Tiwari formed a team under ACP Anil Sharma, which conducted the raid in Okhla Phase-II with the sub-divisional magistrate (Badarpur), NGO Mission Mukti and Food Safety and Standards Authority of India.“Many of these products had expired or become unfit for human consumption. Instead of disposing them of as required under law, they erased the original manufacturing and expiry dates using chemical thinners and used specialised printing machines to print counterfeit dates directly on wrappers and labels,” a senior officer said.He added that the accused also replaced nutritional information stickers, affixed fake batch numbers, barcodes and maximum retail prices (MRPs), and repackaged the products in fresh-looking wrappers before supplying them in bulk. “Huge stocks of tampered products were seized from the premises,” said the DCP. Some of the products were meant for sale in open markets, while others were supplied through e-commerce platforms and exported as genuine products, he added.The recovery of printing, sealing and date-altering machinery from the premises confirmed that the factory was operating as a full-fledged illegal repackaging unit, police said.The accused have been identified as owner Darshan Singh Sachdeva, manager Nitesh Bhardwaj (38), accountant Narender Kumar (42), machine operator Kapil (34), warehouse keeper Lucky Ojha (45), and supervisors Prem Yadav (33) and Pawan Kumar Yadav (32).An FIR has been registered at Okhla Industrial Area police station under sections 275 (sale of noxious food or drink), 318 (cheating), 336 (forgery), 340 (forged document or electronic record and using it as genuine) and 61 (criminal conspiracy) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
