Pune’s morality police ranting over a rave

For Pune Rural Superintendent of Police Vishwas Nangare Patil, the latest "catch" couldn't have been better timed — or better publicized.

With a team of over 100 policemen, he led a raid on a private farm yesterday and arrested as many as 287 people, all in their early 20s, from a rave party. Of those arrested, 29 were women.

Patil claimed that they had seized from the revellers 100 gram of hashish, 2.5 kg of ganja, seven bottles of phenyl phenhydrochloride eye drops, and 1,500 "California drops," a liquid greased on the palm and inhaled for intoxication. Each drop is sold for some Rs 500. Also seized were cellphones, music systems, liquor and beer, and vehicles.

Among those arrested were Dhruv Pavan Kaushal and Parmajeet Singh Harcharan Singh Brar, who police say are drug-dealers and a German national, Stefan Muller, who was the DJ. Kaushal is said to have organised the event.

"We have arrested them all on charges of consuming drugs and psychotropic substance during the party. All accused have been booked under Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985," Patil said.

He claimed that their interrogation had revealed names of "some of the top drug-dealers in the city," and that he was "verifying the role of the Israeli drug mafia and some international links which form part of the organised drug syndicate."

Patil has been on a "moral policing" drive for the past few weeks with much of the action taking place in the Sinhagad fort area — the neighbourhood from where the rave arrests were made — some 25 km west of the city. On January 21, he had cracked down on 35 lodges there and arrested 102 couples, including eight "dance-bar" girls.

On January 23, he raided Golden Dream bar at Wadgaon Maval on the Mumbai-Pune highway, some 50 km from here, which according to him was functioning as an illegal dance bar-cum- pickup joint. Eleven women were arrested on charges of prostitution.

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