In a joint operation, a team of city police and special operation group (SOG) busted a betting (satta) racket during intervening night of Thursday and Friday. The police team arrested two persons allegedly operating the racket from a godown in Bandbazar area under Kotwali police station and recovered a laptop, eight mobile phones and Rs 2.09 lakh in cash from their possession.
Police said that arrested were Amit Kumar, a resident of 24 Sanjay Colony under Patel Nagar police station area and Sandeep Sharma, a resident of Tilak Road, were arrested when they were indulged in betting through mobile phone, slips and laptop. Police claimed that the bookies had a network across the city.
Police received a tip off that a betting racket was being run in Band Bazar area. Acting promptly on the tip off, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Kewal Khurana set up a team comprising circle officer (City) Harish Chandra Sati and sub inspector Manmohan Singh Negi, in-charge Khudbuda police chowki and five constables to look into the matter.
The police team laid a trap to bust the racket, activating its network of informers. Soon it got information that the betting was on at a godown in Band Bazaar area. The team immediately raided the godown where two alleged bookies were found indulged in betting. The police team nabbed the duo. During interrogation, the duo confessed that they were running racket for the past some time, police claimed, adding that the primary interrogation suggests that the racket had its root in Chandigarh.
The bookies said that money was staked through chits and mobiles were used to receive the calls from punters. Calculator was used in making calculations. Each chit has a number on which money was staked. In case of number fixed by the punters emerged victorious, the bookies used to return 80 times more of the betting amount to the punters, police said.
Police said that the duo had a big network in the city and used to remain in touch with the punters with their mobile numbers. They used to fix a number on the chits when any punter used to call them on the mobile numbers recovered from their possessions. And punters used to come in their contact through their strong network.
Police registered a case against the duo under relevant sections of the IPC and are investigating further. Police were trying to find out whether the racket was also involved in betting on IPl matches. Khurana said that drive against the punters would be continued.