An illegal casino was running in Neeraj Forest Resort in Ganga Bhogpur located in Yamkeshwar block of Pauri district. On Thursday night, police raided here and arrested 32 persons. These include 28 gamblers, while four others are casino employees. 16 gamblers are from Delhi, five from Uttar Pradesh, six from Haridwar and one from Pauri Garhwal. An Uttarakhand Police constable is also among the gamblers. Police found Rs 5.16 lakh, 3993 casino chips, eight decks of cards, 37 mobile phones, six liquor bottles and other items at the spot. Eight luxury cars and two taxis of the accused were also found on the spot, which were seized. The casino was operating in the resort’s wellness center. That has also been sealed. A case has also been registered against four persons, including resort owner RK Gupta, for operating the casino illegally. All four are being searched. SSP Pauri Garhwal Shweta Choubey, who met the journalists at Laxmanjhula police station on Friday, said that information about gambling on a large scale was received in Neeraj Forest Resort. On this, Additional Superintendent of Police Kotdwar Jaya Baluni, Deputy Superintendent of Police Srinagar R. A team was formed under the leadership of Chamoli and Laxmanjhula police station in-charge Inspector Vinod Gusain. Who raided the resort at around 11:30 pm on Thursday night.
There the casino was being operated in the basement of the wellness center. 28 people were found gambling on the spot. Four women who helped them in gambling were also arrested. Five dancers were also present, who were handed over to their relatives after interrogation. During interrogation it was revealed that gambling was going on in the resort for the last two days. SSP said that a case has also been registered against resort owner RK Gupta, resort manager Sahil Grover, front office manager Tanuj Gupta and gambling gang leader Vishal Singh, resident of Bhagwati Garden (New Delhi). RK Gupta is also the founder of Seema Dental College, Rishikesh. SSP has announced a reward of Rs 10,000 for the police team that took action.
Rishikesh police constable also included
Haridwar resident constable Vineet Kumar is also among the 32 persons arrested by the police from the spot. Vineet is currently posted in Rishikesh police station. SSP said that a report has been sent to senior police officers of Dehradun district for departmental action against Vineet.
They were arrested
Vishal Karnawal, Lalit Chauhan, Ramkumar Chauhan, Om Prakash, Vineet Kumar, Kala all residents of Haridwar and Dhaniram Sharma, Manjeet Kumar, Pramod Goyal, Kapil Mehta, Dinesh Kumar Goyal, Paras, Pradeep, Ratan Jot, Dharmendra, Sarabjit, Praveen Mittal, Pritam Singh, Ashok, Mohit, Rajesh, Krishna Dahiya, all residents of Delhi, Harbhajan, Amit, Aditya Kumar, Amar Singh, Nadeem, all residents of Bijnor (Uttar Pradesh) and Dilbar Rawat, resident of Bukandi (Pauri Garhwal) were caught gambling. Apart from this, casino employees Bhavana Pandey, Indira, Ramita Shrestha, Cheeja Khodga, all residents of Delhi, have also been arrested.
Woman constable sent as customer, then raided
SSP Shweta Chaubey said that a few hours before the raid, a female constable was sent to the resort posing as a customer. The constable booked the room there and then investigated the activities at the resort. Also understood the geographical location of the entire area. During this time, the rest of the police team was present at some distance from the resort.
After finding solid evidence of casino operation, the constable gave signals to the team present outside to take action. After this, the police surrounded the resort from all sides and closed all the entry and exit points. A police team went straight to the basement, where the gamblers were caught red handed. All this happened so fast that no one got a chance to escape.
