The Chandigarh police were today scrambling for cover after a harebrained drive to round up chain-snatchers by Sector 34 police yesterday blew up in their face by the evening. And one of those picked up turned out to be a leading snooker player, who is now threatening to file a defamation suit. In a bizarre move, the police had yesterday organised some ‘snatchings’ of their own and even invited the media to witness the event. Believe it or not, a police party raided various snooker joints, picked up 29 young men, bundled them into a truck and took them to the police station. The provocation — listen to the Inspector Dhanraj Sharma, SHO and the man behind the raids: ‘‘Youngsters spend about Rs 50 an hour on playing pool. We wanted to verify where this money was coming from. Were the parents giving it to them or was it coming from criminal activities, such as snatching?’’ Manish Srivastava And today, one of Chandigarh’s leading billiards player, 35-year-old Manish Kumar, was threatening to take the police to court tomorrow. ‘‘They have defamed me and ruined my career. I have been inundated with telephone calls since my photograph appeared in a newspaper,’’ he said. Manish says he was honoured by the Chandigarh Billiards and Snooker Association in 1992. ‘‘Till last year, I enjoyed this No 1 ranking from the association. All these years I have represented Chandigarh in national snooker and billiards events.’’ He recalled that he was playing at a leading pool joint in Sector 34 when the police barged in around 1 pm. ‘‘ The joint belongs to a close friend and in fact I teach people to play there. The police however never cared to verify my antecedents. Holding me by my wrist, they pushed me into the police truck.’’ He met the UT SSP and SP (City) today but says they offered no convincing explanation for his harassment. The SP (City), Baldev Singh, has in fact, been asked by IGP Rajesh Kumar to complete an inquiry into the incident within five days and fix blame. This happened after Governer J F R Jacob spoke to the IG.
