Tea powder adulteration racket busted

Hyderabad: Ina significant crackdown on food safety violations, the Hyderabad Commissioner’s Task Force Jubilee Hills Zone and Sanath Nagar police have busted a sophisticated tea powder adulteration racket. The joint team conducted a raid at a premises within Sanath Nagar limits and apprehended a person involved in adulterating tea powder using harmful synthetic chemicals. Police arrested Jagannath Bishnoi and seized 120 kgs of colour-mixed tea powder, 30 kgs of natural tea powder, and 138 kgs of cocopeat mix. Officials also confiscated a weighing machine, synthetic food colours, and twelve boxes of jaggery.

Bishnoi disclosed that he engaged in the adulteration process for illegal profit. He purchased cocopeat, filtered the excess coconut husk, and mixed it with hot jaggery water. This mixture was dried for several days before adding synthetic food colours Sunset Yellow and Tartrazine Orange. The coloured mixture was dried again before being blended into the final product. Gaikwad Vaibhav Raghunath, DCP Task Force, explained that the accused mixed 450 grams of low-quality tea dust and 500 grams of granules with 50 grams of this colour-mixed cocopeat. This fraudulent powder was sold to local tea stalls at high prices as genuine tea powder.

Police have advised citizens to purchase products only from authorised sellers and report suspected adulteration. Food business operators are warned that such activities pose a serious risk to human life and will attract strict criminal cases. Authorities remain vigilant against those misrepresenting food items for profit. Strict legal action is currently being pursued against the accused to deter such dangerous practices in the local market.