7 shopkeepers held for gambling

They were into the business of computerised lottery and were in turn promoting gambling and betting

The Ludhiana police arrested seven shopkeepers from Gol Market near Samarala chowk here on Thursday. They were into the business of computerised lottery and were in turn promoting gambling and betting.

SHO Mandeep Singh and AHO Sanjeev Kapoor led the police raid. The police first covered the entire market from all sides leaving no place for the accused to flee, and all those inside the market were taken into custody by the police. Later, some of these people were let off after proper verification.

Those arrested were identified as Ramesh Kumar, Parbhajot Singh, Hakikat Rai, Pawan Kumar, Ranjit Singh, Darshan Lal and Mahinder Kapoor. The officials said, "We had prior inputs on these people. We were told that these persons under the garb of running computerised lottery system were actually indulging in illegal betting and gambling. Hence, the raid."

Sources said that a local political leader close to the ruling party had been patronising this business in the area for a long time as a result of which the police did not interfere all this time.

However, residents of the nearby area began making complaints to the police as a result of which Thursday's crackdown took place.

Sources added that all these shopkeepers who on papers were running the business of computerised lottery in reality did not even have a single computer installed in their shops.

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