Nagpur: According to media reports, around 300 businessmen from the Nagpur city were left in lurch after their names were found in the contact list of the mobile phone book of alleged bookie Rinku Agarwal, who was arrested by Solapur police in mid-November. Fearing action as Solapur police were asking them to appear before them to clarify, a sizeable number preferred to leave the city overnight to avoid legal hassles.
Agrawal was taken into custody along with two others after their names surfaced following the arrests of four bookies during a raid in Solapur. They were quizzed overnight before being placed under arrest at a Umrer farmhouse and taken to Solapur after the cops procured a transit remand from the local court.
READ: Nagpur bookie Rinku alias Amit Agrawal in Solapur cops’ net
The drama kick-started after Solapur cops returned to the city with the contact list data of Agrawal’s seized mobile phone. Though Agrawal was in remand custody, he was not made to accompany the cops when they came for the second time to city. The Solapur police started making random calls to the people in the contact list of Agrawal and also a few bookies whom he had named.
An automobile dealer, having nothing to do with betting, had his name in the contact list of Agrawal. He was rounded up and detained for several hours before being allowed to go after intense grilling. Learning about his hassles, several other panicked businessmen from Gandhibagh, Wardhaman Nagar and other places decided to flee the city assuming that their turns would also come even though they had no connection to betting but knew Agrawal in relation to his other legal businesses in the city and elsewhere.
Solapur police had also rounded up one bookie, identified as Haji, who was among the lot that had wrapped up the illegal betting activities following warning from city police chief Amitesh Kumar. The CP’s strict action on bookies had ensured the top names having already shifting their base or stopping their activities. Sources said Haji had developed health complications during the grilling of Solapur police and had to be admitted to a hospital.
Solapur police CP Ankush Shinde said his action on the bookies was one of the strictest in the state. “I have so far received no complaints either in written or verbally. If I receive any complaints, there would be action,” he said.
