Finger found in ice-cream belonged to factory worker in Pune

Mumbai: The ‘human finger’ found in a Yummo ice-cream delivered to a Mumbai doctor may have belonged to an injured worker of a Pune-based contract manufacturer, police investigation revealed on Wednesday.

The young worker had ostensibly sustained an injury to his middle finger while working in the Fortune Dairy’s plant located in Indapur, Pune, which manufactures ice-creams for Yummo.

The Malad police station in Mumbai has already carried out a medical examination and DNA test on the worker along with forensic tests to confirm if they match with the finger that was detected in the ice-cream delivered to Brendan Ferrao.

A company source confirmed on Wednesday that the worker was from Fortune Dairy and Yummo Ice-Creams has already stopped all its third-party manufacturing there immediately after the matter came to light, besides withdrawing all stocks from the markets and warehouses.

The police probe has found that after the finger reportedly got severed in the factory accident, he was sent for treatment to a private hospital but nobody realised where the finger part had vanished – till it emerged in Ferrao’s ice-cream, sparking a huge controversy.

The particular batch was manufactured almost a month prior to the incident that was reported on June 12, and after travelling through nearly half a dozen storage locations in Pune and Mumbai, it finally reached the unsuspecting customer’s home in an online order.

This week, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) inspected Fortune Dairy’s factory premises and suspended its manufacturing licence till the investigation is completed.