A suspended Gurugram Police head constable who was on the run was arrested along with his accomplice on Wednesday night for allegedly running a casino in the upscale South City-I here. Besides the duo, 41 people, including four women, were arrested during the raid.
The casino was set up at the present address just three days before the raid.
Encounter case
Suspended head constable Paramjeet Singh is wanted in connection with “fake” encounter of gangster Sandeep Gadoli in Mumbai last year.
Acting on a tip-off, Sector 40 Station House Officer Inspector Sudhir Kumar constituted several teams with help from crime units and the Police Control Room riders, and mounted a raid at the K-block house late on Wednesday. The police teams found casino tables in three of the rooms inside the house and liquor being served by the women.
₹22 lakh seized
“The men and women ran helter-skelter on seeing the police but were arrested. Forty-three persons, including four women, were arrested,” said Mr. Kumar.
The police claim to have seized ₹22.44 lakh in cash, $4, a pistol, four live cartridges, 48 beer bottles, 210 counters, four packs of playing cards, three laptops and three casino tables during the raid. The owner of the house has been identified and efforts are on to arrest him, said the police.
Sources added that people were invited to the house through WhatsApp. Most of the people arrested at the casino are in their late 30s and businessmen by profession. They belong to Gurugram, Delhi and Rajasthan, said the police.
The suspended head constable, a resident of Jhajjar, is one of the five policemen named in a first information report registered by the Mumbai Police against a Gurugram Police team in connection with “fake” encounter of the gangster in a Mumbai hotel in February last year. While four of the policemen have already been arrested, Mr. Singh was on the run.
His accomplice Kapil Batra, who was also arrested during the raid, belongs to Sector 40. Deputy Commissioner of Police, Crime, Sumit Kumar said Mr. Batra has been involved in gambling business for the past several years and had moved out of Gurugram in 2010 after the police started keeping a close watch on him.
“He returned to Gurugram recently. He first ran a casino in Sector 40. He had the contacts of people who frequented Goa and Macau for gambling. Most of them were his clients,” said the officer.
While Mr. Singh has been remanded to two-day police custody, the rest have been sent to jail. A case has been registered against the accused under different sections of the Gambling Act, the Excise Act and the Arms Act at Sector 40 Police Station.
