NEW DELHI: Tucked away in the dingy lanes of Mill Road in Uttam Nagar, this gambling den was nothing less than a police safehouse, with armed men equipped with walkie-talkies standing guard outside.
The space was closed and a well-kept secret — no walk-ins were allowed, and the regular gamblers who frequented the place were contacted through calls and messages via an encrypted chat platform. They would be sent invites with the reporting time, and everyone had to strictly follow the fixed one-hour slot.
On Tuesday, however, the gamblers’ luck ran out as the police, working on a tip-off, raided the hideout and arrested 35 people, including the alleged mastermind. An amount of Rs 1.5 lakh was recovered too.
Cops said they received information that a closed group of gamblers had assembled at a house in Uttam Nagar. “A team went to the place, which was found locked from the outside,” said deputy commissioner of police (Dwarka) M Harsha Vardhan.
When police managed to force open the door, they found a group of 35 people gambling. “During the probe, we found that Aashif was running the gambling den,” he said, adding that the accused were found keeping track of the bets in a notebook.
Explaining the modus operandi, a police officer said members of the syndicate used to call or invite punters individually to convey the time and space where they could assemble for gambling. Some of the gamblers, added cops, were desperate criminals.
The inquiry also revealed that a group of 30 punters used to bet at a time inside a room that used to be locked from the outside. “The gang used to look for houses with only one entry and exit so they could look out for cops,” the officer said.
Police said it was difficult to locate the syndicate, which would generally operate at odd hours. The complicated topography of Uttam Nagar area also didn’t help, with its narrow streets, they added.