A business rivalry between two subcontracting firms led to an automobile firm receiving 'condom samosas' in Pimpri Chinchwad area of Maharashtra's Pune, a police official said on Monday.
A subcontracting firm, Catalyst Service Solutions Pvt Ltd, responsible for providing food items to the canteen of the automobile firm, was asked to supply samosas, news agency PTI quoted police as saying.
The firm had given a contract to provide samosas to another subcontracting firm named Manohar Enterprises, police said, adding that some of the automobile firm employees on Saturday "found condoms, gutka and stones in the samosas".
Five persons were then booked. Those booked comprised two workers of a subcontracting firm that was asked to supply the samosas as well as three partners of another such firm that had been removed earlier for adulteration, the official said.
"The three partners had allegedly planted these two workers to ensure the firm that had got the samosa contract now would get defamed," he said.
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 Chikhli police station official said.
"We registered a case under IPC section 328 (causing hurt by means of poison) and 120B (criminal conspiracy). The two accused told us they are employees of SRA Enterprises and were sent by its partners to Manohar Enterprises to adulterate food supplied by the latter," he said.
It was then found that SRA Enterprises was removed from the contract earlier after a bandage was found in a snack they had supplied and the partners, identified as Rahim Shaikh, Azhar Shaikh, and Majhar Shaikh, wanted to ruin the market reputation of Manohar Enterprises.
One person has been arrested in the matter, police said.
