KARACHI – The upscale restaurant Arizona Grill sealed in Karachi over the death of two minor siblings was found to have expired meat and squash bottles in its storeroom, it has emerged.
The food authorities sealed the godown of the eatery on Tuesday after conducting a raid and recovering one of the meat packages which bore expiry date from 2015.
Abrar Shaikh, the director for operations of Sindh Food Authority, detailed that hundreds of squash bottles that were a year past their expiry dates and around 80kg of rotten meat were found in the store of Arizona Grill.
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“Three-year-old meat was being served to the customers,” he confirmed after heading a team which sealed the store.
Food authority had earlier forwarded a report to Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, which confirmed that the restaurant was recently served a notice to improve its hygiene conditions.
The Karachi restaurant is under the radar of police after two brothers who dined out at the restaurant and later consumed a candy, died. They were laid to rest on Monday.
Officials believe that one-and-a-half-year-old Ahmad and five-year-old Mohammad died from ‘food poisoning’; their mother, Ayesha, was also admitted to a private hospital.
The autopsy of the siblings was carried out at the Jinnah Post-Graduate Medical Centre (JPMC), however, the police surgeon asserted that the cause of the deaths will be disclosed in the chemical examination report.
The death of the siblings has stirred a debate in the province regarding improved hygiene in food spots across Karachi, Hyderabad and other cities though most of them are located in the metropolis.
Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani has also formed a committee to revive the Sindh Food Authority (SFA); the body has been constituted in light of the recent deaths which are being considered to be a case of food poisoning though an official confirmation is awaited in this regard.
