Kochi: Rotten fish was seized at Maradu here from two containers on Monday. The local people, who noted the fetid vehicles, alerted the municipality and food safety officials who later inspected them and found rotten piranha and rohu fish in them, reported Manorama News.

The vehicles did not have freezers in them. While one container only had completely rotten fish, the other had fresh fish mixed with spoilt ones. They were stored in ice boxes. Sources say that they were stored to be sold in local markets.

Maradu Municipality Chairman Antony Ashanparambil said that it wasn't sure where the vehicles were headed, and the drivers and cleaners were missing. "They are Andhra Pradesh registration vehicles. We tried calling a driver's number, but it is switched off. As of now, the police are doing further checks. We were holding our steering committee when the local people alerted us. We stopped the meeting and came here to do the checks. The vehicles have a strong chemical smell, and have no freezers in them. We learnt that a few small vehicles came early and collected some boxes of these fish, from these vehicles," he said.

The health officials with the chairman said that while tests are generally conducted to evaluate the quality of fish, this batch of fish doesn't require it as they are mostly rotten. "We have still collected some samples, and will be destroying the rest," said an official.