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| April 20, 2007 | Friday | Rabi-us-Sani 02, 1428 |
Police fail to find evidence against influential patrons: Crackdown on crime dens
LAHORE, April 19: The capital city police, in its crackdown launched against gambling dens and brothels since Feb 20 this year, has arrested 1,384 people and recovered stake money worth Rs6.446 million, official figures say.
But it is yet to lay hands on major nominated operators and patrons of 51 `high profile’ gambling and prostitution dens out of 53 identified by the President’s Secretariat in its report sent to the Punjab government two months ago.
The crackdown, ordered by the Punjab chief minister and IGP, was also supposed to eliminate dens involved in drug-trafficking. The capital city police was asked to report progress in 10 days. As the local media carried contents of the report before the crackdown, many operators and their patrons went underground.
The report had disclosed that the dens and brothels were being protected by ruling PML’s provincial ministers, legislators, local government representatives, bureaucrats, senior police officers, a couple of known journalists and other influential people of the society.
A senior police officer, seeking anonymity, said the police probe could not find any link between the influentials and operators of the identified dens.
“It is not an easy task to get evidence which is admissible in the court of law,” he said.
The police took action against two SHOs for patronising gambling dens in their respective areas whereas, according to the president secretariat’s report, all identified dens enjoyed police protection.
According to the statistics available with Dawn, the police registered cases against 30 identified dens/brothels and against 268 unlisted dens till April 17. During the raids, 111 people absconded.
In their last raid on Tuesday on four unlisted dens, police picked up 30 gamblers while four managed their escape.
Only two owner-cum-operators — Shahid Khan, running a den at Barkat Market, Garden Town, and Shahid Gujjar, supervising a den at Chappar Stop, Samanabad — were arrested.
The police officials claim that all 53 identified dens have been sealed.
Inspector Malik Taimoor of Samanabad police station was punished for patronising the gambling den of Sharif Gujjar on Multan Road from where police arrested 23 gamblers and recovered Rs1.19 million stake money.
Garden Town SHO Javed Gujjar was also suspended for his alleged involvement in protecting the den of Shahid Gujjar.
According to division-wise progress, the Cantt division registered cases against 13 dens and arrested 61 gamblers, Civil Lines lodged cases against 38 dens and arrested 253 people, Mughalpura division took action against 26 dens and nabbed 153 gamblers, City division smashed 48 dens and apprehended 160 gamblers, Ravi division raided 77 dens and netted 250 gamblers, Iqbal Town division sealed 38 dens and detained 169 gamblers, Sadar division police sealed 32 dens and nabbed 158 people, Model Town division closed 11 dens and arrested 112 people while Kot Lakhpat division registered cases against 68 gamblers after raiding 15 dens.
Capital city police officer Malik Iqbal said the crackdown was in progress since Feb 20 and would continue indefinitely.
Answering a question, he said action against influential patrons would be taken on the basis of solid evidence.
He said that challans of the arrested people would be sent to courts.
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