Arizona Grill (PECHS) Manager Claim That Expired Meat Does Not Belong To Them

The mother is hospitalized and is and under treatment but unfortunately her sons: two minor brothers died of food poisoning this Sunday afternoon. After complaint the authorities sealed the restaurant Arizona Grill in the metropolis for forensic investigation. On Saturday night the family had dined at Arizona Grill located in zamzama, Defence housing authority (DHA) and afterwards grabbed a candy from a shop near Chunky Monkey park in DHA phase 5. They reached home at 2am and kids started to vomit at 6am.

“Two minor brothers namely Ahmad, one and half year old, and Muhammad, five, died from food poisoning on Sunday afternoon,” confirmed SSP Pir Mohammad Shah.

In crucial cases of food poisoning the evidence is often lost as doctors tend to wash the stomach of affected patients. Food poisoning affects the body within four hours. The investigators has sent sample of deceased children’s blood, urine and of vomit recovered from dustbin and cloths to Agha Khan University Hospital.

The samples of milk (consumed at home) and 8 samples of candy from shop near park has also been taken. The mother shared that the candy had a strange flavor.

CM took notice and ordered a report of the last time the two facilities were inspected, with details of inspection mechanism clearly outlined. Sindh Food Authority Director Operations Ibrar Shaikh reported that he took 12 food samples from the eatery and sealed it.

At Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre  (JPMC) the autopsy of two minor siblings was carried out on Monday, postmortem reports are still due. According to a source, no traces of poison were found in the chemical examination of some of the samples at a private laboratory in Karachi.

The images of expired meat in 2015 from warehouse of Arizona Grill by Times of Karachi went viral.

Informant deployed in the area tipped the officials about suspicious activity in the vicinity on Tuesday. Upon raid over 80 kilograms of the meat, juice concentrates and other ingredients used to prepare food were confiscated from the warehouse. Sindh Food Authority (SFA) operations director Abrar Sheikh added that the restaurant did not disclose the location about the warehouse during the raid. He added that on seeing the police, the Suzuki driver fled the scene, while the authorities detained a suspect Waheed Al who revealed that he had been employed by Arizona Grill as a caretaker at the warehouse. The contents of the deep freezer were already dumped by staff before authorities reached.

“Hundreds of sherbet (squash) bottles that were a year past their expiry dates and around 80kg of rotten meat were found,”  “Three-year-old meat was being served to the customers,” Shaikh said.

Sardar Raziq, who manages their PECHS outlet, rubbished the reports regarding the discovery of expired meat products from its warehouse reported tribute.

“The images being flashed on the media are of imported meat, We do not use imported meat. Our steaks are priced between Rs700 and Rs800, while restaurants that use imported meat charge Rs7,000 to Rs8,000 for a steak. It is not viable for us to use imported meat, hence all our meat is locally sourced.” He added “I did not know whose warehouse it was but it had nothing to do with their franchise”

Funeral prayers of both boys were held on Monday. Provincial Minister of  Food Hari Ram Kishori directed the board members to finalize within one week the laws to make the Sindh food authority “completely active”.