PUNE: The police on Wednesday arrested five persons, including a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), for running a betting racket at Nigdi.
Javed Shaikh, a corporator from Akurdi, was among the few NCP leaders to withstand the BJP’s landslide in the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation elections in February.
The Nigdi police said Mr. Shaikh (47) along with Navin Mittal (43), Rakesh Mehta (37), Pravin Pawar (36), and Zakir Shaikh (29) was running bets from a building at Chikhali on matches in the ongoing Tamil Nadu Premier League.
The police recovered betting articles worth ₹2.77 lakh, including ₹53,000 in cash. “Acting on a tip-off, we raided a flat in Mittal Building at Chikhali and seized mobile phones, a laptop, and a betting register. We have booked them under the Bombay Prevention of Gambling Act, 1887,” said senior police inspector Vijakumar Palsule. Further investigations are on.
This is not the first time that the NCP leader has courted trouble. He was arrested in 2009 by the Nigdi police in an extortion case.
He weathered the BJP storm to be elected for the third consecutive time from the Akurdi panel, defeating the Shiv Sena’s Maruti Bhapkar (once a prominent Aam Aadmi Party leader) by a formidable margin.
