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Mumbai police arrest man over rat poison distribution at Muharram procession
Police said the man from Pune ordered 30,000 capsules online and 50 kg of zinc phosphide; he added 1 gram of rat poison to each capsule and told people they were painkillers
- PUBLISHED: Sun 28 Jun 2026, 4:15 PM
A Pune businessman was arrested by Mumbai police for allegedly distributing capsules mixed with rat poison (zinc phosphide) during a Muharram procession in the city.
Faiyaz Premji, who has a paints business in Pune, reportedly acquired 50kg of the poison and filled the capsules with it. He allegedly distributed them to people who were in the procession, claiming they were painkillers.
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Jayant Meena, a deputy commissioner of Mumbai Police, told the media Faiyaz was caught distributing the tablets on Friday. A dozen people who had taken them fell ill and were rushed to a hospital. “He told us he wanted to target the procession and harm the participants,” Meena told reporters.
“He had ordered 30,000 capsules online and 50 kg of zinc phosphide. He added 1 gram of zinc phosphide to each capsule.” The police caught him immediately as he was distributing the capsules and prevented a major tragedy. They also seized nearly 15,000 of the poisoned capsules.
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The police probe revealed that Faiyaz, who is divorced, had visited Iran and Iraq nearly 20 times over the past year. His sister works as a physiotherapist in Iran and his mother is also there. Investigators are probing as to whether Faiyaz acted alone, or was involved with some others. “His foreign travel links and possible associates in Mumbai are also being investigated,” added Meena.
Three women volunteers first saw Faiyaz distributing the pills in a suspicious manner to many people in the procession. They then stopped him, alerted the police and also made announcements, asking the people in the procession not to touch the pills.
According to the police, Faiyaz later confessed he wanted to distribute it to kill at least 15,000 people.
Earlier in April, four members of a family from Mumbai’s Pydhonie area died after having biryani with some relatives and later consuming watermelon.
The victims – Abdullah Dokadia, his wife Nasreen and daughters Aisha and Zainab – had eaten watermelons that were later confirmed to have contained rat poison.
There are growing instances of people succumbing to rat poison (rodenticides) across India. In Chennai, for instance, records in the toxicology departments of government hospitals last year revealed that rat poisons top the case of deaths, followed by snake bites.
One government hospital in the Tamil Nadu capital reported nearly 2,200 cases of rat poisoning between 2021 and 2025. After 803 cases happened in 2022, the government banned the sale and use of three per cent yellow phosphorous paste, the most used one for harming people. Since then, the number of cases have declined sharply, with 2025 recording 222 rat poison cases.
