Mumbai rave party raided, drugs seized

A team of Anti-Narcotics Cell sleuths on Sunday night raided a pub in Juhu and detained 239 youths attending an alleged trance party there. Nine of those picked up were later arrested on charges of possessing, selling and consuming narcotics. The police seized around 104 tablets of Ecstacy, 850 drops of LSD and charas worth around Rs 9.6 lakh.

The team was led by Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Vishwas Nangre-Patil, known for his crack-down on rave parties in Pune. “We staked out the pub, Bombay 72 degrees, for a few days and raided the premises on Sunday night. We seized drugs and a cash of Rs 1.56 lakh. Out of the 239 people detained, eight, including a woman, were found to be in possession of narcotics and have been arrested. As for the rest, they were sent to various government hospitals for getting their blood and urine samples and were released later,” he said.

Action would be taken against those testing positive for usage of narcotics, Nangre-Patil said. “Our main focus was on apprehending the peddlers,” he added.

The nine arrested have been identified as Rahul Karmarkar, Ben Simone, an Israeli national and the DJ of the trance party, Rajesh Talwar, Salil Roy, Wheelan Bretto, Sameer Shah, Salil Kothari, Kashish Malkani and Anuradha. They would be produced before the magistrate’s court on Tuesday.