Months after the Bhopal Municipal Corporation got embroiled in a major controversy over allegations that a slaughterhouse that operated under a public-private partnership had slaughtered cows, the Madhya Pradesh Police said the key evidence in the case, about 26.5 tonnes of seized meat, could no longer be relied upon as it had been released back to the accused.

Police seized the meat from a refrigerated truck in December last year based on allegations raised by a group called Ma Bhawani Sangathan that the slaughterhouse at Jinsi in Bhopal was slaughtering cows and passing it off as buffalo meat.

According to the chargesheet, when samples of the meat were sent for a preliminary forensic examination in Mathura, it was confirmed to be cow meat.

However, when police personnel reviewed the CCTV cameras inside the slaughterhouse, they found that the footage only showed buffaloes being slaughtered, the chargesheet filed by police last month said.

Subsequently, more samples were then sent to Hyderabad for a…