14 held in crackdown on illegal lottery operators in Ludhiana in a week

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, October 22

The special branch wing of the police has launched a crackdown on illegal lottery (darra satta) operators in the city and arrested 14 persons within a week in this connection. Cases have been registered against accused at various police stations in the city.

Led by branch in-charge Inspector Beant Juneja, the team conducted several raids at various places in the city.

Special branch had inputs that from the past few weeks, some illegal lottery operators were operating in the areas, including Dharampura, Basti Mani Singh, Sundar Nagar, Subash Nagar, Kundanpuri, Jawahar Nagar camp, PUDA Market, Fieldganj, Model Town and Daresi, said Juneja.

“Usually all illegal lottery operators are connected with each other. Earlier, whenever police conducted raid on a lottery operator, he used to alert others about it. Now, we conducted simultaneous raids on several operators. Hence, we didn’t give them chance to shut their shops,” Juneja added.

Everyday, special branch teams conducted raids, which led to the arrest of 14 accused, said Juneja. The police also recovered Rs1.08 lakh and six mobile phones from the accused, Juneja added. “These operators lure labour class and poor people to buy lottery number and become rich in short span of time. Instead of becoming rich, most people lost money,” said Juneja.

“We will not let anyone run lottery racket the city. Our branch is still keeping tab on such lottery operators. Soon, more arrests will be made in this connection,” Juneja added.