Surat: The state monitoring cell (SMC) police raided a ‘moving’ gambling den in Variyavi Bazar in the old city of Surat and arrested 40 gamblers.
The police raided a home at 2am in the midnight of Jan 26 where the den gave all the facilities, including valet parking, food, tobacco, cigarettes among others.
Cops seized more than 380 coins, each valued from Rs 100 to Rs 50,000, which was printed on it.Police arrested notorious Mohammad Hussein alias Mammu Hansoti, Nazir Saiyed alias Guddu Firing and Sajjad Hussein Kapadiya who were involved in serious crimes like firing, murder in the past.
“This den was a moving den and all the accused Mammu and Gulam Sabir Shaikh would run it by renting many homes in Khajurawadi area. All homes were connected to each other through stairs and other means so that they can move from one place to other place,” said police.
Most important thing is that they kept on changing the home so that police cannot take warrant that it is being run at one place. “We cordoned the area and raided at midnight after posing as gamblers and succeeded in arresting 40 gamblers,” said the den operators, who would threaten the local people not to reveal about den.
They would rent their houses for good rent, and would keep watch on police through his 25 men to avoid raid.
After the raid the accused tried to flee the spot by switching off the lights. However, as the police went there with gunned SRP force, they could not flee the spot. Gamblers would come there and exchange money for the coins. There were around 60 people who would give service to gamblers including valet parking, food, tobacco, cigarettes among others. The raid was conducted under police inspector CH Panara. Police seized Rs 2.67 lakh cash, 35 mobile phones worth Rs 2.85 lakhs, 850 coins, 180 playing card sets and booked all under Gambling Act.