2 gangs of bookies busted by Panchkula Police

The raids were carried out at around 10 pm,police officials said. The accused have been identified as Naveen Gopal,a resident of Manimajra,Navneet Sehgal,of Manimajra,Ravinder Arora of Sector 7,Panchkula,Rajiv Kumar of Manimajra,Dharamveer Singh of Manimajra,Anees Ahmed of Indra colony,Manimajra,Gopal of Zirakpur,Sunil of Manimajra,Rakesh Kumar of Manimajra,Pradeep Soni of Rajasthan and Sunil Kumar of Manimajra.

Police officials said that the two gangs of bookies has been operating independently at Sector 21 and Mansa Devi complex area,adding that during questioning some of them revealed that they has been carrying out a lottery business in the state but when the Haryana government placed the ban on lotteries they started searching for other means of betting.

Investigations have found that these gangs ran the betting business in a co-ordinated manner and they would also arrange betting on election results.

Commissioner,Police,Panchkula-Ambala range,Rajbir Deswal,said that the gang of bookies used to make entries of people into the computers who betted on the results of a cricket match. On Friday they were found to have been arranging the betting on an IPL match between Delhi and Rajasthan. Police have also recovered 3 laptops,3 television sets and cash of nearly Rs 1.2 lakh from their possession as well as around 20 mobile phones.

“Some of the members of the gangs have been found to be running the betting in Manimajra earlier and they had rented out the rooms in the city to carry on with the illegal activity,” said a police official. He added that most of the accused were from Manimajra and they later roped in other people to run the activity.

“Most of the gang members operated from Manimajra,but they also roped in people from Rajasthan and even Zirakpur to carry on with the betting,” said a police official.