A 4-month pregnant woman,Priyanka Moitro, with her daughter stopped by a McDonald’s outlet in EM Bypass area of Kolkata and ordered McDonald’s special french fries among other food items.
It was a birthday treat for her 4-year-old daughter, whose birthday was on Tuesday. While tucking into her fries, the daughter discovered the deep-fried lizard.
At the sight of the dead reptile, Moitro became sick. “I screamed and rushed to the washroom to throw up after seeing the lizard in my fries. It was horrible and disgusting,” Ms Mitra, a homemaker, told NDTV.
Priyanka, who is expecting, started feeling ill and dizzy, thinking of the health of her daughter and her unborn child. She clicked a picture of the dead lizard along with the french fries and lodged a complaint against the McDonald outlet with the Phulbagan police station. She even rushed to her gynecologist immediately to confirm that her baby was fine.
Priyanka said, “When I told the outlet manager about the incident, he showed a careless attitude and left with just a sorry. He just took away the order and offered to replace the same with fresh stuff and offered us a birthday party for kids to talk them out of escalating the issue.”
“Filing a police complaint was important. People should know about this incident as consuming such poisonous food can be fatal”, she added.
Police said, “We are taking the situation seriously. We have immediately acted upon being made aware of the complaint, we launched a thorough investigation in an effort to gather the facts of the matter…it is still on-going.”
Priyanka’s husband Sanjay Mitra, who is currently in Lucknow, said, “I’m shocked! I’m concerned about my family’s health. My wife is pregnant. How can McDonald’s be so careless? As soon as I heard about the incident, I contacted Delhi and Kolkata’s McDonald’s office, but they didn’t bother. There’s been no apology, they just want us to send it to them for analysis.”
Meanwhile, Food Safety Authority officials have inspected the restaurant, including the kitchen.
There have been many green faces all around since the news surfaced.
Priyanka’s sister, Sonika Poddar, said, “A person claiming to be from McDonald’s contacted me on Facebook, but I told them that we have filed a complaint with the police.”
Raja Mani, a McDonald’s official from Delhi, said, “A customer allegedly found a foreign body in their food. We take all reports of this nature very seriously and investigate them thoroughly.”
An official spokesperson of McDonald’s India (North and East divisions), in their defense, has said, “We have been in contact with the customer and are taking the situation seriously. As soon as we learnt about the complaint, we launched a thorough investigation to gather the facts of the matter. Probe into the matter is going on and we are fully cooperating with authorities involved.”
